In Our Solemn Hour
by Warsaw and Vilnius
Summary: The time was World War II, at the dawn of a global conflict like nothing any of the Nations had ever seen before. Nothing could've prepared them for what lay ahead: a war more total and radical than anything they could ever have imagined. This wasn't just business as usual; it was centuries' worth of pent-up emotions all coming into play at once. This was indeed their darkest hour.
1. To War

**Intro: Hi, and welcome to In Our Solemn Hour, a really long story that's going to go all the way through World War II, looking at it from the different Nation's perspectives. You'll get to see how they react to both the historical events and their own personal interactions. This is the first in a planned trilogy, to be followed by An Iron Curtain (about the Cold-War-and-the-Soviet-Union era) and a prequel, To End All Wars (about World War I). First of all, this is written by two authors (Warsaw and Vilnius, if you couldn't guess), and the story is divided up into chapters consisting of a number of scenes. The scenes are divided so that Warsaw writes some and Vilnius others, so there will be some variation in writing styles, but we're working hard to make sure it's not too drastic a change. Secondly, we're going to warn you now that this story is going to get kind of dark later on. It is World War II, after all, but you should know that we have the goal of keeping all the characters reasonably sympathetic, with their own motivations and issues and understandings of events. Thirdly, we're updating once a week, so stay tuned!**

_Disclaimer: Himaruya is the genius here, creator of this vast frontier. This story he'd for sure disown; suffice to say: WE DO NOT OWN._

**In Our Solemn Hour**

**Chapter One: To War**

_September 1, 1939  
__Approaching the German-Polish Border_

"Uuuuuuuugh…"

Germany's fingers tightened around the steering wheel. "Stop it, Prussia."

"_Uuuuuuuugh_…"

This earned the older Nation a whap on the back of the head, courtesy of his highly irritated brother. "Stop complaining." _If you make one more dying cow sound, I swear, I will break you in half._

"It's not even five in the morning yet," Prussia protested, converting the majority, if not all, of the audience members to his side of the argument and giving Germany what most people would judge to be a well-deserved scowl. "I can complain if I want to. _Nobody_ should have to be awake this early." A valid point, dying cow sounds or no. He shot a glare towards the back seat. "_Austria_'s not awake this early."

"What do you mean?" the blond asked, not taking his eyes off the road. "He was up before you were." He has been louder than Prussia had, too, in retrospect.

"He fell asleep ten minutes ago," Prussia snorted, with more than a hint of jealousy. The twisted love child of a smirk and a scowl formed on his face and he perked up as a thought occurred to him. This couldn't possibly end well. "You got something I can throw at him to wake him up?"

"No, I do not," Germany rolled his eyes, silently resenting his brother for having the maturity level of toddler after a half hour in the doctor's waiting room with only boring health magazines for company. Why would they put those out? Nobody ever read them…

While it was possible that Prussia had registered what his brother had said, it was almost certain that he didn't care. Immediately after asking his question, he had begun to rummage around in the already-open glove box of previously well-ordered car crap, searching out something suitable for throwing while being careful not to disturb the sleeping yellow chick that had claimed the compartment as his temporary bed and nestled into the yellowing pages of the owner's manual, a tiny, adorable bundle of gently breathing fluff. Prussia would've thrown the owner's manual, but one did not disturb a sleeping bird if one did not want to get pecked. He found his ammo in the form of a small notebook that Germany usually used for writing down directions or other important information that needed remembering, twisted around in his chair, and lobbed the projectile at Austria's head before Germany realized what his brother was doing. The constantly freeloading and previously sleeping noble woke with a start, staring in sleepy confusion at the notebook in his lap for a few moments as though he couldn't quite figure out what it was. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and then looked up at Prussia, the expression on his face best translated as "They will never find your body because there will be nothing _left_ to find, you insolent worm. Grr."

"Prussia!" Germany barely resisted the urge to beat his head on the window until he was unconscious. He even more narrowly avoided doing the same to his brother. It had been a _long_ ride.

The same pained expression instantly appeared on both Germany and Austria's faces as Prussia burst out into a bout of his loud, obnoxious, _unholy_ laughter. Time for some audience participation: take a pencil. Now drill it into your brain until you can pull it out the other side. Congratulations, you now have an approximate replication of Germany's headache at that moment. "Wake up," the silver-haired Nation barked belatedly. "It's not fair that you get to sleep and I don't."

"And _why_ don't you?" Austria growled dangerously, the "insolent worm" look retaking its rightful place on his face. Germany sighed. He had long since learned not to get between Austria and his beauty sleep. Of course, so had Prussia, but the nut-job of a Nation had insisted on ignoring his survival instinct once again. No surprises there.

Prussia yawned theatrically before gracing Austria with an answer. "I _would_," he explained in that special voice people used when explaining to kindergarteners that, no, they can't eat the crayons and, both more commonly and more relevantly, talking to blithering idiots. "But in case you haven't noticed, _you're_ taking up the backseat and _Germany_ won't let me put my feet on the dashboard." The look he gave his brother suggested that, in Prussia's mind, this was the worst crime against humanity a person could possibly commit. Oh, Germany, vilest of villains and lover of his new car. "He kept _moving_ them."

"Oh, the horror," Austria rolled his eyes and directed his attention to Germany. "How long before we get rid of him?"

"It won't be much longer," Germany said, reassuring more himself than the man in the backseat.

The brunette groaned. "I'm going back to sleep," he announced loudly, this time utilizing a tone suggesting that interference would be dealt with swiftly and without mercy.

"Like hell you are!" Prussia cackled maniacally, taking up the imaginary challenge with gusto and reaching over the back of his seat to swat enthusiastically at Austria. "Just try and sleep now, you spoiled brat!"

Austria pressed his back up against his seat, leaning out of Prussia's reach with a disgusted frown, a visual "ugh," if you will. "Keep your filthy hands away from me." So much for "without mercy", then.

Prussia's grin promptly doubled in size. "Make me!" he crowed, giving Mariazell a vicious yank.

"Germany, Prussia's _touching_ me," Austria complained expectantly, swiping at the noisy menace like a cat at the loose threads on a pair of cheap shorts. Without the claws or the pounce, anyway.

"Prussia, stop _touching_ him," Germany dutifully ordered, mimicking Austria's over-the-top tone of voice in a way that was for too accurate not to have been learned from experience. Prussia inevitably laughed harder and Germany treated him to a death glare. "Really, Prussia, just go to sleep if you're so tired. Can't you just-?"

Prussia groaned loudly, cutting the blond off and switching back to his crayon-eater-slash-blithering-idiot voice. "I _told _you. You won't let me put my feet up and you won't let me sit in the back." He punctuated this irritated reminder by roughly poking his brother repeatedly on the side of his head as he added, "Why does he get the back all to himself, _huh_?"

Germany removed his brother's finger from his person and grouchily countered, "Because you would _touch _him, Prussia, and then I would have to deal with it." _Cough-he's-whiny-enough-as-it-is-cough._

"Oh, so it's his fault!" Prussia turned back to the understandably grumpy Austria and resumed his hair-pulling antics.

Germany sighed and resigned himself to the hellish fate of driving with Austria and Prussia, neither of whom had gotten much sleep recently, and made a conscious decision to simply ignore whatever chaos they happened to create, despite the superhuman tolerance it would require. Sure, it was annoying, and the time would take to reach their destination seemed to have mysteriously tripled (minimum) that morning, but in a few more minutes, he would be rid of Prussia and, at that point, he would be able to focus on the approaching invasion. Austria would probably go back to sleep or something, and then everything would be okay…

That was when Germany remembered the notebook. And the reason he remembered the notebook was that it came flying past his head and collided with the windshield, landing on the dashboard with a _thunk_. "Argh!"

"Argh?" Austria repeated, mildly amused. Prussia snickered.

Germany glanced into the back seat. "Did you throw that?" he demanded angrily, scowling at Austria, who answered the question by pointing at Prussia's hand, which was wrapped once again around Mariazell. "You missed," Germany said dryly, rolling his eyes as he turned back to face the road and wondering how much trouble he would get in if he left Austria on the side of the street. Tied him up and threw him in the trunk. Shot him. "Don't throw things in my car." Sicced France on him, maybe. Ick, _that_ would be a bit much.

"He started it," Austria protested haughtily as Prussia finally turned and sat back in his seat. Perhaps "kindergartener" was as valid a description for him, too, if you ignored the crayon-eating clause. God help Austria if he ever ate a crayon.

"You're not four years old, so don't even try that argument." Germany snapped. "Besides, I don't care who started, I'm ending it. Now, behave, both of you." _What was he now, their father or something? For goodness' sake, they were both _older _than him._

Both of his passengers seemed to realize this as well, and they managed a blissful…oh, ten minutes of silence. Not bad, considering who was in the car and how early it was. Germany made a mental note to tell all of his future bosses that invasions planned for 4:45 in the morning were completely out of the question, end of story.

Prussia stretched his arms and legs out as far as possible, purposefully hitting his brother upside the head in the process, and then pulled the limbs into a messy ball on the car seat. Germany hated to say it, but... "Prussia, don't go to sleep now, we're almost here." He received an _mmmmm_ in response. "Prussia-."

"Who invades at five in the morning, anyway?" the older Nation grumbled, turning away from his brother. Given his tone of voice, he could have just said, "Sleepy now; go 'way," and successfully achieved the same effect.

"Prussia, we can't be more than five minutes away, so…" Germany's older brother ignored him, choosing instead to pretend to snore. Loudly. The sound was more reminiscent of an old push lawnmower or perhaps a chainsaw starting up than it was an actual snore, but you had to give Prussia points for effort, mostly because he might "snore" at you if you didn't.

"Take his bird. That should wake him up," Austria suggested helpfully. Germany figured it was worth a shot and reached for the glove box, only to have Prussia slap his hand away, suddenly wide awake.

"Leave him alone, he's _sleeping_." he ordered in the no-nonsense tone that he rarely bothered to break out. Germany semi-contentedly sat back against his chair. That was one less problem he had to deal with, even if it would likely create another.

"That makes one of us," Austria grumbled from the backseat.

_Oh well_, Germany thought. The peace had been nice while it…oh, who did he think he was fooling?

Prussia glared at the brunette over his shoulder before grabbing the notebook from where it had fallen on the floor and hurling it as if it were a dodgeball at the poncy whiner behind him. It hit Austria square in the head, effectively proving that the poor thing would've been utterly slaughtered in a middle school gym class.

"Ow," Austria protested unhappily, glaring daggers at Prussia as though would somehow be able to put an end to their centuries-old feud.

"I just said-!" Germany slammed on the brakes, jerking his passengers forward against their seatbelts. "You know what? We're close enough, Prussia, you can walk from here."

"What?" Prussia turned to face his brother. "That's so not fair!"

"It's my car; I don't have to be fair. The driver makes the rules." Shotgun shuts his cakehole. "Now take your bird and go," The blond snapped, ignoring Prussia's too-hurt-to-be-true expression in favor of a few minutes of peace and quiet. Be honest, who wouldn't have done the same by that point?

"You _suck_." Pouting, Prussia got out of the car, slamming the door behind him as Gilbird blinked awake in his hand, slowly coming to terms with the fact that someone had _moved him_. The chick flapped his wings a few times before taking off to fly circles around his owner's head while Prussia retrieved his gear from the trunk, stopping to make a grotesque face at Austria through the car window. The corners of Austria's mouth twitched and he shooed Prussia away, getting the finger in return.

Germany rolled his eyes again, banged his head on the steering wheel a few times, and drove away.

-o-

_September 1, 1939  
__Near the German-Polish Border_

"It's _cute_!" was the first thing Prussia said upon seeing the Stuka he was going to pilot. He'd seen the planes before, of course, but he'd been looking at them in a military context then, evaluating their potential for raining destruction down on the enemy. This time he was just waiting for the other member of the crew to get there, so he had a chance to get a proper look at the airplane. And the conclusion that Prussia immediately came to was that the Stuka was probably the cutest dive-bombing aircraft ever made, and there was no way anybody would ever convince him otherwise.

Prussia poked the wheel of the airplane a few times. There was no conceivable reason for him to do this, but a lack of reason for doing something had never stopped him before and it sure didn't stop him now. "So what do you think?" he asked Gilbird after completing his poking session. "Is it awesome enough for the great Prussia?" The little yellow bird fluttered from its position on Prussia's shoulder onto the wheel, hopped around a few times, then chirped its approval. Prussia's grin widened. "Yeah, it's definitely awesome," he agreed. "I can't wait to get going. When's the other guy supposed to get here? Is he late?"

Gilbird cheeped again, as if to say "I don't know," then flew back to Prussia's shoulder and settled down to go back to sleep. Prussia continued his inspection of the airplane, making sure that his first impression had been correct and that it was indeed sufficiently awesome for his awesome self. After a few minutes, the sound of approaching footsteps signaled the other crew member's arrival.

"Are you Gilbert Beilschmidt?" the man asked. Prussia vaguely remembered that his name was something-or-another Rothstein.

"That's me," Prussia confirmed. He looked the man over. Blond hair, blue eyes, seemed reasonably fit. Overall, he looked like the ideal German soldier, exactly the type of person the propaganda would love to show bravely fighting for the country. Prussia, meanwhile, was quite aware that he did _not_ look the part. Red eyes, nearly white hair, a bird asleep on his shoulder…not exactly the image of the perfect German as defined by the Nazi party.

Rothstein studied him and appeared to come to the same conclusion, but didn't seem to mind that much. He looked more confused than disapproving, looking as if a question he'd expected to have answered had remained unresolved. His lips moved as he tried to find a way to form this question without sounding rude or looking like an idiot if the answer was actually something obvious that he'd missed. "I'm sorry, I…well, I was never informed of your rank," he finally said.

"Meh, neither was I," Prussia responded. "All I know is that it's low enough that I can get yelled at, but high enough that I can yell back." The other man stared at him in confusion. Prussia just shrugged. "All that matters is that you know that I'm awesome."

"Er…okay…but shouldn't you—"

Prussia sighed, vaguely wishing that someone along the line would have thought to give him a specific rank, even if it was just for show, so that he wouldn't have to explain why he didn't have one every time he met someone new. He'd never been able to come up with a decent explanation that didn't end with him getting fed up and just telling the truth, so after a while, he'd stopped trying to lie in the first place. Fortunately for him, he didn't have to work at getting people to believe him; any time a Nation told a human exactly what they were, there was never any need to spend time explaining. The same magic (or whatever it was) that made them essentially immortal, allowed them to heal from anything at a (usually) advanced rate, and caused all kinds of unpleasant physical reactions whenever something bad happened to their country, also had the convenient effect of making people believe them when they said they were a Nation. Even if the so-called explanation consisted of Prussia saying "blah blah blah, I'm the personification of the awesome Prussia. Now let's go; we've got a war to fight."

Laughing awesomely (or, as most would describe it, _obnoxiously_), Prussia boarded the plane. Rothstein followed, looking thoroughly confused and shocked and awed (but mostly confused) by Prussia's revelation, despite the fact that it had begun with the phrase "blah blah blah." Suddenly finding out about the existence of national personifications tended to have that effect on people.

Prussia had always liked that part of explaining what he was to others. They always looked at him like he was the coolest thing ever. Although to be fair, he _was _the coolest thing ever (at least in his mind), so this was only natural. The moment was sort of ruined a minute later, however, when Rothstein said "uh…Mr. Beilschmidt…or is it Prussia, or…?"

"Prussia."

"Mr. Prussia, sir, there's a bird in the plane."

"Huh?" Prussia looked around. "Where?"

"It's on your shoulder, sir."

"Oh. That's Gilbird," Prussia said, strapping himself into the pilot's seat. "He's with me." There was a very long moment of silence as Rothstein absorbed this new piece of information before Prussia decided to speed up the process. "First rule of dealing with national personifications: we're weird. All of us, even the ones who try to pretend that they're not."

"We? So…there are more people like you?"

"One of us for every country in existence," Prussia said. "But just so you know, I'm the awesomest."

"Um…right. Got it."

Prussia checked the instruments one last time. "We ready to go?"

Ahead of them, the first dive-bomber took off, followed by another, then another.

"Ready, sir."

Prussia grinned like the maniac he was as they started forward, gaining speed and altitude as the plane rose up into the sky. He wished that there would be a sunrise to properly illuminate the moment as the twenty-nine dive-bombers headed off to war. Unfortunately, however, it was five in the morning, or something disgustingly close to it, so he had to make do without.

Prussia had hoped for some action along the way. Not a major aerial battle; something on that scale could cause problems by throwing the attack way off schedule or maybe even forcing it to get called off entirely. But something small-scale would have been nice; a quick preview of the Stuka's capabilities before the big show would make the trip a bit more fun.

Unfortunately for Prussia and his love of combat, however, nothing happened. The dive-bombers made their way to the battle unhindered, Prussia and Rothstein made the trip in silence, although Prussia knew that Rothstein had a small army of questions he was dying to ask, and Gilbird remained asleep on Prussia's shoulder.

It wasn't until they reached their target, the town of Wieluń where reconnaissance had located a Polish cavalry brigade and a Polish infantry division in need of destruction the day before, that Prussia realized he had a problem: Gilbird may have been perfectly fine sleeping on his shoulder during the flight _to_ Wieluń, but he sure wasn't going to appreciate being thrown around when Prussia went into a vertical dive. Maybe he should have left Gilbird with Germany, at least until he was done with the dive-bombing part of the invasion.

Oops.

But thinking about what he should have done wasn't going to help now, so Prussia did the next best thing: he gently scooped the little bird up off his shoulder and deposited him inside his shirt. Gilbird made an irritated chirping sound, annoyed at being suddenly awoken and stuffed in a shirt, and pecked at Prussia's stomach a time or two before settling down to go back to sleep.

Now that the problem of securing the bird was out of the way, it was time to dive. Unfortunately, there was heavy fog down below, which seriously restricted visibility, but it was too late to worry about that now. He was still _pretty_ sure that his aim was right. Well, _mostly_ sure. Or something close to mostly sure. Good enough.

"HERE WE GO!" Prussia yelled, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He pulled the dive lever and closed the coolant flaps, then laughed louder and harder than ever before as the plane began to dive straight down. Red tabs extended from the upper surface of the wings to indicate that the automatic dive recovery system would activate in case Prussia blacked out from the g-force. The plane sped downward, Prussia laughing the entire way.

A light came on, letting Prussia know that he had reached the bomb-release point. "BOMBS AWAY!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Blame the adrenaline. He released the bomb, then pressed a knob on the control column. The plane automatically began pulling out of the dive, and Prussia's laughing abruptly ceased as things went darker and lost their colors. Blackness began creeping in on the sides of Prussia's vision until the g-force began to lessen somewhat and his vision went back to normal. Prussia opened the coolant flaps and took control of the airplane again, his insane laughter returning with a vengeance.

"That was _AWESOME_!" he yelled, wishing very much that he could turn around and do it again. Maybe a few more times. Maybe all day. But alas, he could not, and would have to be content with going to meet up with Germany and continuing the invasion from the ground. Germany had agreed to let him be part of the first bombing raid of the war because he knew that Prussia had wanted to try out the new dive-bombers since he'd first heard of them, but once would have to be enough because Prussia was needed with the army more.

Still, Prussia thought, just because he wouldn't get to do any more with the _Luftwaffe_ right now didn't mean he couldn't convince Germany to let him try out the Stukas again in a later part of the war. Heck, maybe dive-bombing could become his new _thing_…

Within the hour, Prussia was back where he'd begun, standing outside the (still cute) plane. Rothstein got out after him. "Uh, where's your bird?" he asked.

"I put him in my shirt before we dived," Prussia said. He reached into his shirt and pulled Gilbird out. Gilbird promptly pecked his hand and flew onto the wheel of the plane. "I think he's sort of mad at me."

Rothstein appeared to be trying quite hard not to laugh or point out that this really shouldn't be a surprise.

"Anyway," Prussia continued, oblivious to this. "I've got to go. I'm supposed to meet up with Germany now. See you around." He started to walk off. Gilbird followed him, just out of reach in case Prussia decided to go dive-bombing again.

"Uh…Mr. Prussia?"

Prussia stopped and turned to face the other man. "Yeah?"

"I…it was an honor meeting you," Rothstein said.

Prussia grinned and saluted. "Thanks. Cool meeting you too," he said, then turned and jogged off in the direction of the car that was waiting for him. Time to go find Germany. Well, Germany or Austria, but finding Germany was preferable.

Prussia exits stage left.

-o-

_September 1, 1939  
Warsaw__, Poland_

If you ever find yourself in the position to ask the personification of a country a question, "What's the worst part about being invaded?" will probably not be the first thing that comes to mind. But, if you ever do mosey your way on over to asking it, most Nations will give you the same answer. There are, naturally, the _sane_ few who'll tell you it's being occupied, or worse, conquered, or that it's the fighting or the death. You know, the icky, horrible, _depressing_ things like that. Most Nations, however, will give you a certain, less serious answer: that the worst part of being invaded is the three-hot-dogs-and-a-roller-coaster feeling in the pit of your stomach that warns you of the attack.

It went away after a while, of course, because the first priority of a Nation's body was to get them battle-ready—a fact which alternated between totally _awesome_ and totally _awful_—but those first few minutes of nausea were excruciating, and the lingering queasiness was no fun, either. That was why, when Poland was jolted awake in the wee hours of that fateful Friday morning, the first thing he did was bolt for the bathroom and gag, gasping in mouthfuls of putrid over-the-toilet air in between dry heaves.

_Ew_.

Poland shook his head to clear it and pushed off the cold white tank, getting back onto his feet with a slight groan as the security alarms going off in his stomach, going off in his _head_, faded out of existence to let normalcy regain its hold. Turning to the sink, he gave the faucet's right knob a harsh twist and splashed the resulting stream of cold water onto his face. "What the heck is, like, going on?" he mumbled to no one in particular, drying his eyes on his pink pajama sleeve. There was no one around to answer his frustrated question, but, fortunately, no answer was necessary. Poland knew exactly what the heck was, like, going on. He needed no "Nation's intuition" or built-in alert system in the form of nausea to tell him, though. Poland wasn't stupid. A bit childish at times? Yes. Quirky? Oh, of course. A few sandwiches short of a picnic, so to speak? Honestly, do you even have to ask? Yes, Poland was all of these things and more, but stupid he was not.

He had known that something had been brewing over at Germany's place for a while now. _Everyone _had. It had hardly been some big secret, after all. And there had been so many long, boring phone calls, and even longer, boring-er meetings, filled with arguing and cleverly-worded sentences that would seem mostly innocuous if both parties hadn't been looking for the double meanings in every line. There had been lots deep, calming breaths taken, plenty of obviously angry faces that were supposed to be noncommittal smiles, a good number of "I don't think you _quite understand_"s exchanged through clenched teeth, and at least one employment of England's patented smile-and-abruptly-offer-them-tea distraction, about which there were some rumors traveling the Nation gossip circuit. (Okay, you have to promise not to tell anyone, but it was claimed that the island nation in question had stolen it from _another_ certain island nation. You didn't hear that from me, got it?) England loudly denied it whenever asked, and Japan just looked disappointedly at the inquisitor and politely declined comment. But I digress; Poland had technically offered hot chocolate, because it had been just the sort of wet-chilly morning that was simply begging for liquid chocolate, and he'd acquired a fondness for the drink from Lithuania, who may or may not have been addicted to it. Germany had objected to neither the mug of delicious warmth that Poland had stalked off to make without waiting for an answer, nor to the puffy white marshmallows that had been floating in the top, and had allowed himself to be distracted for a few refills. Poland had taken that as a sign that his normally no-nonsense neighbor was not entirely irredeemable.

Apparently, he decided grimly, trying to force a comb through his messy morning blond bird's nest, he had been totally wrong. After all, it was basically five in the morning. Who invaded this early? Poland had just _known_ Germany would try something—you could call it a gut feeling if you wanted, but human decency frowned upon the idea, because human decency frowned upon puns. Even before the meetings had gotten to the point of irritating frequency, there had been plenty of signs. And not like those darn speed limit signs that are oh-so conveniently blocked by a tree and inevitably get you pulled over and ticketed, either, but like a great big, twenty-five foot "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign all done up in neon and flashing lights. The kind of thing that was hard to miss, you know? England and France's policy of appeasement evidently hadn't done the Continent any good. If you have a mouse a cookie, after all, you're going to have to hand over the milk to go with it. Germany had, among other things, occupied Czechoslovakia, declared "screw this" to the Treaty of Versailles, and annexed Austria. Poland questioned his sanity on that last part. The freeloading noble was hardly the ideal house guest, especially in the long term. Poland stuck his vibrant orange toothbrush in his mouth and cheerfully wished Germany many fun-filled years of hand-patched dirty underwear and expired food. Germany hadn't exactly been shouting his love of the Treaty from the rooftops, but… The Treaty of Versailles, Poland mused as he hopped into his uniform pants, was rather like dog poo. Nobody really _liked_ it—too greedy, too harsh, too useless, "Aw, you guys don't like my plan?"—and it inevitably got walked right over. And tracked through the living room? Would that be Europe? Poland paused. Blinked.

"_Ew_."

Not one of his best analogies, then. Even if it did make sense.

Poland, now fully dressed, lingered in his doorway for a minute, staring down at the pistol in his hands. Poland didn't _like_ war. There were very few Nations who did, and that was usually just a phase—hard not to have fun when you're winning battle after battle and forging yourself an empire, after all. But eventually, the _heck, yeah!_ and the pride swelling in your chest gave way to the _death, pain, destruction_ that was going on around you, no matter who it was that was suffering. Eventually, every Nation figured out that war sucked, and the phase would end. Of course, Prussia had never really grown out of that stage, and America, kid that he was, didn't seem to have figured out how badly war sucked, whether you were winning or not. His revolution had been too important to break him, which made reasonable sense, but nobody quite understood how the Civil War had come and gone without teaching him a lesson or two. Poland, as did the rest of the world, kind of wished the North American Nation would just…_lose_ something, for goodness sake, if only to shut him up for a little while. World War I had been icky and not fun, and there couldn't have been anyone in Europe hoping for a repeat performance, Germany included. Sure, Poland had confidence in his soldiers, in his _people_, but there was still a nasty feeling in his stomach warning him that Germany wouldn't let himself be defeated so easily.

Poland tightened his grip on the pistol, took a deep breath, and headed out into the sunrise. _To war, then_.

-o-

_September 3, 1939  
__The Tuchola Forest, Poland_

To tell the truth (not that it really needed to be _told_; it was fairly obvious by itself), Austria had never particularly liked any kind of warfare. If he had to choose, however, he much preferred war _before_ guns got involved. Back when combat was a test of skill rather than luck, when victory required more than just the ability to pull a trigger. And no, he _didn't_ just say that because he didn't want to agree with Switzerland. Well, that may have been a little part of it, but even beyond that, he really did prefer old-fashioned warfare to modern warfare. Luck was less of a factor back then, and more importantly, swords were just more _elegant_ weapons. However, although swords may have been more elegant than guns, that didn't mean he actually _liked_ fighting with either.

It should really go without saying, then, that Austria was very much not pleased to be taking part in this invasion. Sure, if someone else invaded _him_, he would fight back (despite what Prussia said to the contrary.) Self-defense, however, was completely different from _starting_ a fight. Border expansion may have been a pretty standard objective for a Nation, but that didn't mean Austria had to like it. Germany, of course, had completely ignored his objections and dragged him along on the invasion anyway. And that was how Austria had ended up with an infantry unit in the Tuchola forest when Poland arrived on the evening of the first day of the invasion.

Joy.

To say that Austria did not particularly like Poland would be an understatement. Poland was, in Austria's mind, the single most annoying Nation in existence (after Prussia.) Austria had rather hoped that after he, Prussia, and Russia had partitioned Poland back in the late eighteenth century, he wouldn't have to deal with him as often. And, more importantly, he wouldn't have to hear that endlessly annoying speech pattern. But alas, not only had Poland managed to continue to pop up from time to time and annoy him back then, not only had Poland managed to get himself back on the map after the last war, but Poland was also apparently going to continue to annoy him by putting in another appearance right now, alongside his cavalry.

At first glance, it looked like he was riding a pony. Austria blinked and looked again. Yes, that was definitely a pony, the only pony among the full-sized horses of the cavalry. Austria did not want to know the story behind this, and in fact did not even want to _think _about the story behind this because acknowledging that there was a story would mean acknowledging that it was actually happening. Fortunately, the fact that he and his unit were under attack made a good distraction.

They had been resting in a clearing when Poland and his cavalry had announced their presence in the form of a charge. After Austria finished double-checking that Poland was, in fact, riding a pony (_why_ was he riding a pony? _Why_?), the rational part of his mind caught up with him and he realized that he was being _attacked_ and should therefore do something about this situation.

Retreat seemed like a good option. And by retreat, I mean running like heck, because that's what you _do_ when you see a whole bunch of people on horseback (and one on ponyback) charging at you. You freak out and _run, _because the alternative is either getting killed or getting trampled, which is like getting killed, only more specific.

Retreat was definitely the logical course of action, and it was exactly what Austria did, along with everyone else in the clearing. They weighed the options and decided that retreat was the wisest choice at the moment. And by that, I mean they freaked out, decided that it was better to flee like Italians than die, then promptly ran like heck, scattering in the woods in a shining example of utter chaos and panic, leaving Poland the proud owner of a clearing in the woods. Congratulations, Poland. Enjoy your new clearing.

It took Austria a minute of retreating (read: running like Italy) to realize that Poland was occupying the clearing that Austria had just deserted, rather than pursuing him through the forest, and that, consequently, he could stop running and breathe. He did so. It then occurred to him that he might, _might_, have a chance at mounting a surprise counterattack if he could reorganize the scattered infantry unit and somehow locate reinforcements. There were supposed to be other German forces nearby. Maybe he could summon them to help.

Maybe he should check out whether this idea of his had even a remote possibility of working before he tried to summon anyone. He crept through the forest, back toward the clearing he'd just left. As he neared the clearing, sounds of conversation in Polish met his ears, as did the sound of a very loud and rather painful-sounding coughing fit. He peered through the trees.

It would appear that Poland wasn't enjoying his little victory as much as he could have been. Instead, he was coughing like a cat with a hairball, only instead of coughing up hair, he was coughing up blood. One of the men noticed, and ran to him, asking what was wrong. Between coughs, Poland told the man that he was, like, totally fine, and that it was just a Nation thing, which was half true. Coughing up blood _was_ a Nation thing, but that didn't mean Poland was, like, totally fine. He may not have had any physical injuries, but something had happened somewhere in his country that his body did not like. Thus the blood.

This distraction could work in Austria's favor. Poland's forces would definitely be distracted for quite a while by the fact that the personification of their country was coughing up blood. If he could get reinforcements in time and get the unit back in order quickly and quietly enough, this idea just might work. The problem was going to be getting everything together in time. Plus, he didn't even know where to look for the reinforcements. It was possible that the officers officially in charge of the unit knew, but if they _didn't_ know where reinforcements could be found, this whole plan was shot.

Austria mentally checked how long it had taken him to get back to the clearing. Several minutes, walking, since running was too loud. Several minutes to get back, plus however long it took to reorganize things, plus time to find reinforcements and get them there, _plus_ the walk back to the clearing. He mentally sighed. Way too long. Poland's coughing fit wasn't going to keep everyone distracted for that long and by the time he got the whole thing ready, Poland would have time to start expecting something like that.

In short, unless there were some seriously powerful reinforcements lurking nearby, he probably wasn't going to be able to retake the clearing without a major struggle, which could mean a significant number of casualties, which was not what he'd been hoping for at all.

Fortunately, the entire problem of retaking the clearing without major casualties was solved by the sudden arrival of armored personnel carriers with machine guns that just happened to have been nearby. They had apparently found out about Poland's cavalry charge and Austria's retreat, and had come to partake of the violence, taking Poland completely by surprise and causing him and his forces to retreat to a nearby hill for cover.

This sounds absolutely ridiculous, totally unbelievable, and completely contrived, but it actually happened that way. The Germans really did have armored personnel carriers with machine guns, which just so happened to have been stationed nearby, conveniently show up to win the battle for them. It's not a deus ex machina, it's _history_! (Well, actually, it's still a deus ex machina, but that can't be helped without changing historical facts around, which is an even less valid way to deal with the problem than allowing a deus ex machina, which is at least fun to mock.)

After witnessing this ridiculously contrived plot device, Austria entered the clearing. The driver of the nearest deus ex machina went for his gun, but upon noticing Austria's uniform, stopped and saluted. (Unlike Prussia, Austria insisted on wearing an officer's uniform on the battlefield so he would only have to explain what he was to officers, rather than dealing with awkward rank questions from every soldier he met, an idea he had never bothered to share with Prussia, and which Prussia had somehow never caught on to.) Austria saluted back, and thanked the man for showing up out of nowhere and damaging the authors' credibility with the readers…I mean for retaking the clearing.

"By the way, one of the Polish men was on a pony," Austria added. "Chin length blond hair, looked about eighteen or nineteen. Do you know if he got away?"

The driver shook his head. "I wasn't paying attention to individuals," he said. He looked at the dead bodies of the Polish soldiers and horses who hadn't gotten away from the machine gun fire in time. "I don't see any ponies here, though."

Austria looked around the clearing and came to the same conclusion. No ponies, and no Poland. "He's not here." He sighed. "Great. I lost him."

"Who is this guy?"

"Much more important than his age would indicate. Potential leverage against the Polish government, dead or alive." It wasn't technically a lie. "I don't know all the details. All I know is that I'm supposed to capture him alive if possible, although dead is acceptable if not," Austria added.

"Does your guy know you're after him? If he does, and he doesn't have to stay with the cavalry, he might be making a run for it."

"He knows I'm after him, and I'm pretty sure he saw me earlier." _Or at least that he could tell that there was an enemy Nation present._ "We've met a few times before, so if he did see me, he'd recognize me. Now that he knows I know his position, he's probably not going to stay there. And while I _can_ see him charging an armored car on a pony, armed with a sword, I doubt that would be his first choice of battle plans. He's not _completely _stupid." He looked around. "It does look like that's what all the soldiers here were trying to do, though."

The driver looked at the bodies and laughed. "It does, now that you mention it."

"In any case, you're probably right about Feliks getting out of here. He isn't going to stay when the battle's as good as over. I should be able to catch him, if I commandeer a spare horse. I already have a pretty good idea of where he's going anyway." Technically not true. He didn't really know where Poland was going, but the sixth sense that caused Nations to be drawn to each other on the battlefield would take care of that.

"Good luck, then."

"Thank you," Austria said. He started to leave, then froze. "Wait, you don't have a man named Gilbert Beilschmidt with you, do you?"

"No."

Austria breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I was worried that he might have salvaged the situation after I lost a battle, and I don't think I could deal with him if he had. His ego is overinflated enough as it is."

-o-

_September 3, 1939  
__Rome, Italy_

Austria wasn't the only one who didn't like warfare. Italy was not a particularly big fan of it either. When he'd first heard that Germany had invaded Poland, he had been worried that his boss would make him fight, but fortunately, his boss had wanted to stay out of the war almost as much as he had. His boss had said something about not being prepared for war and something about the economy, whereas Italy had just wanted to stay out of the war and not fight either of his friends, but it all boiled down to the same thing: Italy got to sit this one out. Now he just had to tell Germany. Or rather, leave a message for Germany, since Germany didn't exactly carry a phone around with him during the invasion.

The problem with war was that it was always hard to know how to contact people, something that was especially problematic when the war first began and everyone else had to jump in and announce which side they were on or if they weren't going to be on a side at all. Well, there was that problem, and there was also the shooting, and the bombing, and the fact that keeping up a steady supply of pasta could be anywhere from difficult to impossible. And pasta was Italy's fuel. He couldn't do anything without pasta. Some might argue that Italy couldn't do anything _with_ pasta either, but that was another story. The important problem here was communication.

Fortunately, after several disasters had arisen in the last war that could have been easily prevented had the Nations been better able to keep in contact with each other, they had all agreed that things would probably be simpler if they made a rule that allowed Nations at war to leave messages with anyone neutral who was willing to keep track of communications for both sides impartially. This basically meant Switzerland, since he was the first permanently neutral country everybody thought of (which was also the reason that the Nations' permanent meeting room was located in Switzerland's country). Admittedly, he wasn't the _only_ permanently neutral country, but he made the biggest deal about it, so it was a safe bet that everyone would think to call him.

Switzerland didn't even bother with a greeting when he answered the phone. "Are you declaring war on Germany or declaring yourself neutral?" he demanded the instant he picked up the phone.

"Hi, Switzerland! It's Italy! I knew you'd be neutral because you're always neutral, so if Germany calls, can you tell him that I'm going to be neutral too this time?" Italy said.

"Italy, didn't you _already_ declare neutrality?"

Italy didn't appear to notice that Switzerland had spoken, and picked up where he'd left off. "I'm friends with Germany, but I'm also friends with Poland. And I'm afraid that if I pick a side, whoever I don't pick will get mad at me, and I don't want my friends to be mad! So I'm going to be neutral. That way after the war we can still all be friends and eat pasta together because that's what friends do."

"That's exactly what you said yesterday! Why are you declaring yourself neutral again? You just did it!"

"But that was yesterday," Italy said innocently, completely oblivious to Switzerland's irritation.

There was a long silence. "Yes it was," Switzerland finally said, sounding like he was trying very hard to be patient for once. "And declarations of neutrality don't expire. After you've declared neutrality once, your declaration stays in effect until you change it. You don't have to call me every day to tell me that you're neutral."

"Okay, thanks! That's a lot easier! Bye, Switzerland!"

There was a click as Switzerland hung up. Italy put the phone back on the hook and looked at the clock. It was a little early for lunch, but it was close enough. Besides, it was always a good time for pasta. He was halfway done cooking when the phone rang. He wiped the flour off his hands and answered it. "Hello, this is Italy!"

Spain's voice came from the other end. "_Hola_, Italy! Do you know where Romano is?"

"Hi there, Spain! Romano's not here right now. He left yesterday to go somewhere and he wouldn't tell me where it was."

"Do you know when he's getting back?" Spain asked hopefully.

"No. He's been doing this a lot lately. He leaves and goes somewhere for a day or two, then comes back and won't tell me where he went. I've figured it out, though. I think I know where he's going." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "He's going to meet a _girl_."

"WHAT?!" Spain demanded at a volume that was downright earsplitting. There was more, but the only intelligible words were Romano's name and the word _never_, and Italy couldn't even be completely sure that he was hearing that right every time.

"He always tells me to  
mind my own business when I ask, but where else would he be going?" Italy  
continued, apparently not noticing the fact that Spain was rapidly devolving into incoherent hysterics. "He leaves and won't say where he's going, so he must be going to meet his secret girlfriend! I wonder what she's like. Do you think she's pretty?" Italy asked. Spain responded with further unintelligible blubbering, but Italy didn't appear to realize that this wasn't an answer. "I bet she is. I hope I can meet her soon. Anyway, do you want me to tell him that you called when he gets back?"

Spain said something that sounded almost like the word _yes_.

"Okay! Bye, Spain!"

Spain responded by returning to his previous hysterical state, and Italy, again, somehow managed to remain oblivious in that wonderful _Italy_ way of his.

-o-

_September 3, 1939  
__Paris, France_

There was an art to having successful meetings with people that you wanted to punch in the face.

It was a simple fact. This was something you learned when you were in politics, and being the personification of a country meant that you were most definitely _in politics_. Unfortunately, this delicate skill was not something so easily mastered, and not all of the Nations were as good at it as they probably would've liked to be. Even less were as good at it as their _bosses_ wished they were.

There were some countries who were exceptions to the rule, of course. The ones that you didn't need to master anything to be able to keep yourself from punching. Russia, for example, was just too _creepy_, and America would probably hit back, and _hard—_curse his super strength. Switzerland would put a bullet in your brain before you'd so much as begun to curl your fingers, and what sort of a jerk would attack sweet little Liechtenstein, anyway?

That said, most Nations had at least one fellow personification who sent them spiraling into the dark, violent part of their brains. The part filled with guns and swords and battle tactics like, "I'll hit him, and then I'll run away really fast!" and "Maybe, when I go to shake his hand, I can make it look like an accident…" So as a result, they learned to keep their meetings short, or have someone else there, or do them over the phone. Mostly, though, they just avoided each other.

And then there were France and England.

Somehow, some_way_, the two of them had been managing almost-monthly meetings for years. Decades. _Centuries_, even. Since the Norman Conquest, too—of all the times to start. And sure, they had _plenty_ of fights, but the thing was that they didn't fight about stuff like, "I hate you; why don't you go stick your head in the sand like an ostrich and _die_," which was good, because ostriches didn't actually bury their heads in the sand. They also didn't fight about stuff like, "Hey, the big boss at my place doesn't like the big boss at your place, so politics demands that I slap you silly." That was good too, because if Nations hit each other just because some big-shot politician didn't like somebody else's big-shot politician, the countries of the world would've had permanent, matching hand prints all over their faces. That would've hurt and made them look foolish. The things England and France fought over were instead more along the lines of, "Oi! Pervert! Get your hand off my arse," which was always a valid cause, and "You're short and stupid and can't cook!" which was decidedly less valid, except for the last bit. Sometimes there was violence, but if you put two Nations in a room, there would almost inevitably be violence. It went without saying, really.

The point was, England and France, despite their (shall we call it "turbulent"?) relationship shared an impressive track record of meeting with someone they hated and not having to resort to the usual tricks for leaving early, like claiming you thought you were coming down with something (cough, cough), or that you might have left the stove on, or that you had to go iron your dog and water your mongoose. This skill could be attributed to several things, the most prominent of which were practice (_centuries_, remember?) and location.

They weren't the only ones who had worked out that a meeting between Nations went better when it wasn't held in a stuffy office with stiff business suits and tiresome multimedia presentations and papers that had to be shuffled at least once every five minutes, minimum. While most countries preferred a formal, safer environment, there were some who opted for more interesting locales. Hungary and Austria, for example, had been known to appreciate the occasional picnic in the park. America had insisted on taking poor Canada on the Cyclone at Coney Island once upon a time. Infamously, France had gone a bit bike-happy after the first Tour de France and refused to get off his shiny red cycle; as a result, his meeting with England had taken place, after much arguing, with the latter riding on the handlebars, shuffling papers on his legs, and France leaning over his shoulder whenever he needed to sign something. They'd crashed. Repeatedly. Spectacularly. Hilariously.

Normally, however, Nations held their meetings in more _proper_ settings, such as their offices and homes or nice restaurants. After all, the folks at work may have learned to ignore the frequent attempts at strangulation, but restaurant staff and patrons had certainly not.

Despite that fact, as France absentmindedly swirled his glass of wine, he contemplated an attempt at strangulation. He roughly shoved the sleeve of his jacket up into a rumpled lump and checked his watch yet again. France, like most people, did not like to be kept waiting and, like most people, he really did not like to be kept waiting for an hour. Especially not by England.

Eventually, the tardy Nation in question appeared, strolling up to the table and sliding into a chair across from France, an I Am Not Late and I Dare You To Say Otherwise look plastered across his face. France ignored the warning expression, wordlessly tapping his wristwatch, eyebrow raised, scolding. _Do you know what time it is, mister?_

"Oh, be quiet. You're lucky I came at all, frog." England propped his elbows up on the tabletop and unceremoniously dropped his chin into his hands, ignoring the fact that France had not yet ceased being quiet and therefore could not resume such a practice, although that was a fact that would soon be subject to change. Ooh, fancy words.

"You know, if you really _had_ to be late," France pouted, "you could've at least called me instead of making me sit here with a bottle of a wine looking like some loser who's been stood up on a date."

"This isn't a date, France." England asserted immediately on pure instinct, just in case his companion needed a reminder.

France smirked. "Never said it was, _mon petit prince_."

England bristled, gave him a murderous glare, and opted to apply the age-old strategy of "if I ignore it, it'll go away," "it" being the use of his hated nickname. Or possibly France. He would've accepted either. "Besides, if I were going to…" he grimaced. "_Stand you up_, you would know, because we'd be on the verge of war. With each other, I mean."

France groaned. "Ugh. I think I've heard enough about war today, thank you very much," he moped and for once, his neighbor across the Channel had to agree.

England rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it. I have had the _worst_ day. My office was in chaos, my place is in chaos, my boss-,"

"Is in chaos?" France suggested helpfully.

England ignored him. "And I am at war. Again, France. God, I'm not ready for another one. My _country_ isn't ready for another one. We're…I mean, in Europe, nobody…" He sighed for the hundredth, thousandth, who-knows-how-many-eth time that day as France shooed away the badly timed waitress.

"I know how you feel, England," he scowled. "Hasn't Germany had enough yet? Didn't he get the message last time?" He slammed down his glass, still full, splashing a few drops on his napkin. Despite his visible frustration and show of force, the blond Nation looked wearier than anything, except perhaps, in that brief moment, _old_. "I'm…"

"Tired." England knowingly finished for him, absently tapping his fingers on the table. "And I have a splitting headache."

"Aw, want me to kiss it, make it better?" France smiled, abruptly regaining his cheer.

England leaned forward. "You want to know how you can _really _make it better?"

France cocked an eyebrow, unable to resist. "Hmmm?"

England snatched his ally's wine glass from his hand with a grin and took a sip. "Thank you for being so very clueless."

France gasped. With most people, the word "theatrically" could have been applied, but that would imply that he wasn't entirely serious. "There is a bottle right there!" he snapped, gesturing…again, the word theatrically implied something less than one hundred percent genuine.

England shrugged. "And there is another glass right here," He graciously held it out to France. "Knock yourself out. It's your own fault for trying to kiss me."

"I wasn't _trying_, I just _kindly offered_." France grabbed the glass being presented and filled it up, glaring all the while. "You'll pay for that," he assured England, looking about an inch and a quarter away from declaring war for the second time that day. England rolled his eyes again—he was hanging out with America too much, France decided—and sat back against his chair, a slight smile creeping onto his face as he took a slow sip.

"Enjoying that indirect kiss?" France asked suddenly, cocking his head to the side.

England choked violently, causing the vast majority of occupants of the room to cease whatever they were doing and stare at him. His loud, "Oh, you sick _bastard_!" did not help matters either. France merely sighed and shook his head, glancing around in an unspoken, "For goodness sake, dear, you're _embarrassing_ us." England, meanwhile, grabbed his napkin, silverware clattering nosily onto the table, and attacked the sides of the glass he'd stolen from France. He gripped the emancipated fork until his knuckles began to whiten, obviously ready to start the Battle of France a few months early.

France clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "Put the fork down, England. Unless you want to get us arrested again."

England scowled but released his weapon, however reluctantly. "You started that one, too." By somehow managing to get his hand somewhere it shouldn't have been from across the table, no less.

"That one, yes," France admitted. _Not this one_. "But I think our bosses have enough on their plates right now, don't you?"

England made a face. "They were furious."

"You Britannia forked me in a crowded restaurant."

"You tried to strangle me. In a crowded restaurant."

"Ah, but you tried to cut the Union Jack into my forehead with a steak knife." France reminded him. The taller Nation smiled. _Top that_.

"And then the police showed up." England gave an ungentlemanly snort, which should be attributed to the stress of the day and _certainly not_ the fact that he had sort of been sneaking alcohol all day when nobody was looking. It had been of _those_ days. "I think my boss wanted to kill me, or at the very least resign."

"And we weren't even drunk." France noted wistfully, refilling both his glass and England's.

England shook his head. "That's because if we were drunk, you would've done the same thing, but naked." He shot a scolding frown at his newly-declared ally.

"That's why I like it more when we're drunk." France grinned broadly.

England heaved a little sigh, having expected as much, and turned his attention back to the wine. "Please, at least have the decency to save the 'naked fun time' for after the war, France."

"Is that you agreeing to naked fun time?" France asked innocently as England turned tomato red.

"No, it is not," the embarrassed island empire answered slowly, clearly, and very insistently. France didn't seem to notice.

"Well, then…" he raised his glass, "to the quick end of the war, hmm?"

"France, there will be no nudity. I _mean_ that. Are you listening? Ugh." England tapped his glass against France's anyway. "We beat Germany up last time, and we'll do it again," he added confidently.

"Bad example," France scoffed after taking the obligatory sip. "I'd like to resolve this without getting the whole world involved. How does that sound to you?"

"I'll drink to that," was England's heartfelt answer.

"And I'll drink to just about anything." France pointed out enthusiastically, really liking the way this dinner not-a-date was heading.

"Why don't we get started on that, then?"

_Clink._

-o-

_September 3, 1939  
__Near Krakow, Poland_

Poland had absolutely no idea where he was riding to; just that he was riding there as fast as his pony, Twilight Sparkle, could go. It wasn't especially surprising that he didn't know where he was going. Nations traveling between battles rarely did know specifically where they were headed. They were attracted to each other and to major battles by a sort of sixth sense, but that sixth sense didn't tell them their destination ahead of time, so as Poland traveled to the next battle he knew which way he needed to go, but not where he was going _to_. He'd find out the destination when he got there.

Put like that, the Nation version of war looked a bit Zen. Put into practice, it ranged from interesting and occasionally nicer than the alternative (moving from battle to battle _was_, after all, a bit more appealing than spending three weeks taking and retaking the same only-barely-significant hill) to thoroughly miserable (after all, the battles that get splattered across history books do have a tendency to be particularly traumatic for one reason or another, usually the same reason that got them into the books in the first place). At the moment, the situation was leaning more toward the thoroughly miserable end of the spectrum. _Tolerable_ was the kindest word Poland could use to describe it. Not because the act of traveling between battles was unpleasant but because he kept being interrupted by violent coughing fits that always ended with him spitting up blood. This had been happening off and on since the invasion began, but having several days of experience at it didn't make it any more fun or any less worrying.

Poland internally groaned as he started coughing again, even harder than the last few times. After an especially violent cough made his entire body jerk hard enough to almost knock him out of the saddle, he decided that it was better to stop and dismount now and just wait for the coughing fit to pass, rather than falling on his face halfway through it.

A splatter of blood stained the grass at his feet as he dismounted, followed by a second splatter. Poland absently wondered what had caused this particular coughing fit. He knew Germany and company had been dropping incendiary bombs on major cities. That was probably it. He wondered which city it was this time.

The coughing grew more violent, until Poland was on his knees, doubled over in pain and hoping that this wouldn't end with a broken rib. He spat out a glob of blood that had accumulated behind his bottom teeth as the coughing continued, getting worse and worse, until it abruptly stopped altogether.

Poland spat out another glob of blood and waited, expecting another fit to take over where the last one had left off, but nothing came. After a minute more of waiting, he stood up and went back to where Twilight Sparkle waited. "Guess we should, like, get going," he said, maybe to himself, maybe to the pony. A sudden wave of nausea hit him as he went to mount up, and he stopped. "Or maybe not just yet," he mumbled, turning away to find somewhere to sit until this new torment passed. "I feel like total—"

Poland suddenly stumbled forward a step, then vomited.

"Uuuuuuuugh," he groaned, his vision fuzzy. He didn't feel any better after throwing up, which didn't surprise him much. Nations rarely got sick, and even when they did, it didn't usually come on this suddenly. This wasn't an ordinary sickness; it was his body reacting to something that had happened to his people. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, and forced his eyes to focus on the puddle of vomit on the ground.

There was blood in it. A _lot_ of blood. Probably at least as much blood as stomach content. This wasn't just a bombs-as-terror-weapons reaction. This was something much bigger. A massacre, at least. This would require looking into; he needed to know what was happening to his people. Poland waited a few more minutes until he was mostly sure that he wasn't going to throw up again, then went back to Twilight Sparkle. Time to get moving. The sooner he got where he was going, wherever that was, the sooner he could do something about whatever was causing this.

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Stuff:  
- So, on September 1, 1939, at Way Too Early in the morning, Germany (and company) invaded Poland, thus beginning the Second World War. But you already knew that, so let's move on.  
- Everyone already knows why Austria's there, right? The whole thing where Germany's boss made Germany annex Austria, and Austria was like "meh, whatever" (only stuffier) and meanwhile Italy and Hungary were hanging onto Germany and trying to make him leave Austria alone...yeah, there was kinda an episode/strip about that, so if you don't know, go find out about it.  
- The first thing in the war that happened was the bombing of Wieluń, which is what Prussia's doing. Germany and Poland disagreed over whether the bombers were attacking military targets or not, and the fact that visibility sucked only made things more complicated. Regardless of who's telling the truth, things didn't work out very happily for the city, which got a little bit destroyed.  
- After WW1, France and England and America made up the Treaty of Versailles, which slapped Germany with ridiculously huge debt and blamed him for the war that Austria started because his guy got assassinated. Germany got no say in the treaty, and it was (in Warsaw's oh-so-elegant words) stupid and unfair. England thought France was being greedy, Germany thought it was way too harsh, France was like "well, that's an armistice for twenty years, max", and America was all upset because everyone else ignored all of his ideas. Except the League of Nations, which was an epic fail anyway because America's congress wouldn't let him join.  
- England and France had a policy of appeasement with Germany when he started acting up again because they really didn't want another war. Basically, it was "okay, we'll let you have this, but nothing else." Repeatedly. If you give a mouse a cookie, he's gonna want some milk to go with it. (Spoilers: Europe is milk.)  
- About that deus ex machina: yeah, I (Vilnius) could have mentioned the armored cars ahead of time, but really, try to find a single source that mentions them before they show up in the clearing. Every source I looked at made it seem like a deus ex machina, so I couldn't resist. Oh, and just so you know, this is where the stories about Polish cavalry charging tanks came from.  
- Italy declared neutrality. Yep. He was neutral. He didn't actually come into the war until Germany invaded France.  
- France and England, meanwhile, declared war on Germany. They had a treaty with Poland saying that they'd back him up if Germany invaded. Don't expect to see them doing much fighting yet, though.  
- The reason Poland is vomiting up blood in the last scene is the Częstochowa massacre: after rounding up civilians in the city of Częstochowa, the Germans shot anyone found with any kind of pocket knife or razor in their pockets, then opened fire on the other civilians with machine guns. More than a thousand people were killed.

Authory Stuff:  
_Vilnius's Note:_ Um, hi, I'm Vilnius. I'm a history major, hopefully eventually a history professor. I'm a total World War Two geek, and a Prussian history geek. The name comes from me having a similar personality to Lithuania. Only, you know, with less trauma. I'm smiling at you now, because I'm always smiling. Like Russia, but not creepy. (For the record, Warsaw added that last bit, not me.)

_Warsaw's Note__:_ Hi, guys, I'm Warsaw, author number two. I'm what happens if you cross Death the Kid with Poland with Switzerland with Pinkie Pie with...I don't know, the _Saw_ franchise or something...if that tells you anything. The name comes, if you hadn't guessed from my sister's note, the fact that I do (under normal circumstances) remind one of Poland, except with less ditzy and more gore.

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	2. On The Firing Line

_Inevitable Disclaimer: It's not ours. Please don't sue._

Enjoy!

**Chapter Two: On the Firing Line**

_September 10, 1940  
__Wizna, Poland_

We open on a hail of gunfire.

Oh, it was nothing special. There was a war on, after all. So the symphony of shooting really was no great revolt against the expected and the mundane, and the same went for the fact that Poland was beginning to get a headache. He had been cooped up in a concrete bunker for a while now, and though Poland wasn't claustrophobic—that wouldn't do for a Nation, now would it?—the stuffy box on the front lines of a grand scale tug-of-war was hardly a comfy, cozy home sweet home away from the real deal, and God forbid the Germans stoop shooting for, like, five minutes, am I right? And on top of all of that, Poland hadn't been feeling too hot for the last few days. Headache plus nausea plus coughing up blood plus continuous shooting at a persistently impregnable cement wall was not the equation for a very happy Nation. Really, it couldn't possibly have been the equation for a very happy _anyone_.

That was why, firing back at the enemy soldiers, Poland yelled a lot of rude things, some of which were in Polish, some of which were in German, some of which were in the catch-all language that Nations shared, and most of which were unprintable in any tongue. Poland was not very nice when he was angry. Then again, who was?

The blond sat back against the wall and grumbled one of those unprintable things, making the solider next to him wince.

"You've got a real potty mouth there, don't you?" he chuckled.

Poland shrugged. "Sometimes. Mostly when there's a war on and people keep shooting at me _when I have a headache_!" He dropped his head onto his knees, resting it on the barrel of his rifle. He groaned, coughed mid-groan, and then choked mid-cough. The spattering of blood that landed on the back of his hand was quickly wiped away onto the leg of his pants, but not before it was seen by the other occupant of the bunker.

"Hey, you okay there, kid?"

Poland pushed off the hand that had landed on his shoulder. "I'm totally fine. Really." _Worst lie ever. Ugh._

"Long day, huh?" The soldier sat back, arms intertwined behind his head. "Yeah, I think I know how you feel."

"Long war, actually," Poland corrected, finally getting around to reloading his gun.

"Not _that _long. Not yet, anyway. What's it been, a week?"

"Maybe you just haven't been in the right battles," Poland snorted. "You, like, thrown up blood yet?"

The solider cocked an eyebrow. Crinkled his nose. "Not yet," he admitted.

"Well," Poland cracked a bitter smile. "I guess that makes me the expert on 'suck,' then."

"Better you than me-,"

"What's your name?"

The brunette solider blinked, surprised not by the question, but by the intensity with which it was asked. "Czesław." He offered a hand. Poland took it, staring down at the rough skin with a blank look in his eyes, seemingly lost in another century, his characteristic shyness evaporated by the hellfire of war. The soldier who we now know as Czesław waited in an awkward should-I-say-something silence.

"…Feliks," Poland surrendered the information eventually, looking conspicuously away.

"You forget for a second there?" Czesław asked good-naturedly, pulling back his hand, watching with a furrowed brow as Poland's palm slipped listlessly down to his side.

"Sometimes," the boy answered distractedly. "We should get back to work."

"That's how you end a war," the soldier agreed with more cheer than the troubled Nation could ever understand.

"Work" consisted of two parts: the first, shooting through the small window and the second—which was equally as vital—not getting shot through the small window. Luckily enough, Poland was good at both, despite what the bullet wound in his arm suggested. The gauze had long since fallen off, which was hardly surprising, considering Poland's indifferent and hasty application of the bandage. The bullet that Germany had put in his upper arm had been the least of his worries then, and it had remained that way since. Poland couldn't remember if he'd even bothered to clean the wound. Not a particularly wise decision, sure, but he had certainly been a bit preoccupied at the time, and besides, it had healed sooner rather than later, and it would've done the same whether he'd bandaged it or not. And now that there was little more of the injury left than a vaguely discolored patch of skin, he couldn't possibly care less about it. At the moment, he was far more concerned with giving Germany one to match. Plus one in the brain, if at all possible. To be perfectly honest, he would've preferred that outcome. So he aimed and he fired and he yelled his censor-worthy taunts, and he ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach that he was going to lose this battle.

He didn't need intuition, just simple logic. His troops were horribly outnumbered, they had been forced back into to a couple of cramped concrete bunkers, and they were holding this desperate line with nothing but machine gun fire. They had held out well, _incredibly_ well, but…Poland may not have required any intuition to scrounge up a general idea of the situation, but that didn't stop his Nation sense from kicking in and telling him that he needed to get the heck out of dodge before he was killed, captured, both, or worse.

Poland told his Inner Lithuania to shove it and kept firing. No wonder he and the real deal were on such poor terms.

The blond sucked in a deep breath and immersed his mind in his task, determined not to abandon these men until his body was screaming at him to run and he was no longer capable of doing anything but obeying. Yes, until that moment came, even if he had to stand alone, Poland would _hold this line_.

So they would lose. It was certainly not the ending Poland had hoped for, but they could recover from a retreat and besides, it didn't seem half as bad when he thought of Germany trying to explain the situation to his boss. He had 42,000 troops on his side and Poland's grab-bag bunch of conscripts, not even a thousand strong, was managing to give him hell. Poland nearly smiled at the thought. Only nearly, though. He was still going to lose the battle. It would've been so much cooler to be fifty-eight to one and _win_, but he supposed, if necessary, he could settle for knowing that Germany was going to be squirming in his boss's office when this was all over.

Now about that bullet in the brain he wanted to give his enemy so badly… the beleaguered Nation anchored himself into reality with that goal and settled into the routine of the battle, letting the machine gun's victory hymn draw his mind away from the inevitable. So Poland set his jaw, aimed, and fired. Repeated. There, see? That wasn't so hard.

_Come and get me if you dare, puny men of foreign lands! _His face twisted into a sour grimace of resentful humor. _If villages could talk… _Poland aimed for Germany; Germany aimed for Poland. The regular soldiers, well, they were inconsequential unless they started to get too close for comfort.

A surge of pain brought Poland out of his battlefield trance as a bullet tore into his arm for the second time since the battle at Wizna had started. "Fff-!" Poland spluttered, tripping back from the window and clutching the injury. "Ack, _why_?" A bullet for both arms, only a few days apart. At least he matched? Czesław leaned toward him, his mouth beginning to form a concerned word, but Poland beat him out with a quicker, louder retort to the unspoken worries. "Keep shooting. I've, like, had worse, okay?" He flapped the hand of his uninjured arm at the soldier, trying to keep the pain from showing on his face as he once again whipped out the handy-dandy coil of bandages from beneath his jacket. _Again? We've only been here, like, three days_. _Jeez, _somebody's_ been practicing._ He slid his arm out of its sleeve, loathingly examined the injury, and then wrapped it roughly with what was most likely an overly generous amount of gauze.

"Clean it first," Czesław sighed, leaving his position at the window to kneel beside the frustrated Nation.

"I _told_ you, it's _fine_," Poland snapped, shoving the approaching hands away. "It'll be healed up in a day or two, so just, like, leave it."

Czesław took hold of the Nation's arm and began unwrapping the gauze, appearing to be unaware of his companion's struggling. "You don't want it to get infected, do you?" he asked warningly. Poland was unfazed, and in fact snorted in response.

"It'll be healed before it gets the chance," he shot back, yanking his arm out of Czesław's grip and pretending quite badly that it didn't hurt. "Ow..." Ugh, mission failed. Time for Plan B. Poland pushed back up onto his feet and began stubbornly rewrapping the gauze, turning his injured arm away from the by now irritated soldier.

"Kid, I don't think you _quite_ understand how this works," he began crossly. Poland cut him off, rolling his eyes.

"I swear, if I hear that I, like, 'don't _quite_ understand' something one more time,' I'll…" the blond grumbled. Poland leaned back against the nearest wall, letting out a long, slow sigh. "You know what sucks, Czesław?"

"Getting shot in the arm and having the wound get infected?" Poland's companion asked snidely.

The boy made a face. "I was going to say 'war,' but that works too. You have no idea." he frowned. After a moment, he tipped his head towards his arm. "All right, all right. You win."

"Hallelujah," Czesław mumbled as he sat down beside his country and got to work re-unwrapping, which is not at all a word, the gauze. Poland stared at the floor, wincing as the young man cleaned the injury. "So, do you normally keep an industrial-sized roll of bandages in your pocket, or is this a special case?"

Poland's shoulder twitched slightly, but he cut himself off at the beginning of the shrug and just shook his head. It seemed a wiser choice and certainly hurt less. "I get shot at a lot."

"More than the rest of us?" the solider asked conversationally, carefully lifting Poland's arm. "Or should I get one of these, too?" The Nation snorted.

"There's me, this German guy, and then there's…there's everybody else. It's like…" he tapped his ankles on the floor. "It's, like…_complicated_."

"Uh-huh…" Czesław glanced up at him briefly, eyebrows raised. Evidently Poland's explanation had done more harm than good. "Think you can break it down for me?"

"Um…" Poland glanced down at the bandages being applied to his arm, than up at the young solider doing the aforementioned applying. "I'm-."

"Got any tape for this, by any chance?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure," Poland dug around inside his coat for a moment, wincing as he accidentally shifted his bleeding arm, before producing some.

"Huh. What else you got in there?" the brunette asked, surprised, taking the tape. "And hold your arm still, would you? Quit _wiggling _it."

"Blah, blah, blah…" Poland stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes. "I have bullets. And that big heavy thing might be a grenade." He poked at his coat. "Plus some spare buttons, probably."

"The pocket of war is well stocked, I see." Czesław smirked.

"I bounce around a lot." Poland explained, his fingers tapping against the floor. "I mean, I have to be able to patch things up but I can't really lose time having it, like, _looked at_. You know?"

"Not really," Poland's new soldier buddy admitted, grinning stupidly. "You lost me again, kid."

"That happens, yeah. Help me up?" Poland reached out his uninjured arm, clutching his rifle in his hand.

"I'd say you should sit out a while, but funnily enough, I don't think you'd listen," the brunette pulled him up by the wrist. "You don't seem to care much for your health."

"When I said I'd be fine, I meant it, okay?" Poland settled back into his position, squinting out the window, searching for his enemy. _Now where'd Germany sneak off to?_ he wondered, trying to ignore the alarm bells that had begun to go off in his head.

_Time to go_.

Poland frowned and squirmed. That headache of his wasn't getting any better. Where the heck was Germany, anyway? Come on, Poland had places to go, things to do, people to shoot at.

"So what exactly are you, that you have to 'bounce around' so much?" Czesław asked as Poland watched him aim and fire. "You never gave me a rank or…position or anything, but you can't be too much older than, what, eighteen?"

"Nineteen."

"I was close."

Poland pondered this for a few moments. "So, the question is…what moves around a lot, uses 'like' as a comma, and hates medical treatment?"

"You said it, not me." Czesław stared at him expectantly.

"A…what's the word? It's starts with an n…?"

"Sorry?" the soldier blinked in confusion as the blond before him flapped his good arm up and down with increasing speed, trying to think of the word.

Eventually, he sighed, stopped trying to achieve liftoff, and told Czesław, "I don't know. I was trying to think of something funny, but…well, whatever. Anyway, um…" Poland frowned again, and he mumbled briefly to himself. The smile returned. "Anyway, I'm your country, so there!" There was a long silence. Czesław stared wide-eyed at the boy in front of him. Poland took the opportunity to scan the surrounding area for Germany. "Ah-hah!" He took careful aim.

"…I guess I can't call you 'kid', then." the soldier said eventually.

Poland glanced at him. "Eh. I don't mind," He studied Czesław's face. "I know, it's, like, totally freaky."

"Little bit. At least that 'one German guy' thing makes more sense now."

"Yeah, he's a jerk," Poland stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth.

"The bouncing around…?"

"That's battle-hopping. We're—Nations, I mean, are supposed to go fight in all the important battles, but when they're over or we're losing, we, like, have to get out." He tipped his head to this side. "Totally not fair, right? It sucks. I mean it."

"My country on the front lines, huh?" Czesław shook his head slowly, chuckling.

"Always."

"That's almost poetic," the soldier mused. There was a long silence. "Does it ever get any easier?"

"The war thing?" The blond's eyes flickered back towards the inquisitive young man for a moment, then down to his gun, and finally back out into the fray.

"Do you get that a lot?" Czesław asked almost sheepishly.

Poland shrugged. "Sometimes." He fired out of the window, aiming for his attacking counterpart amidst the crowd. He clucked his tongue and pulled back into the safety of the bunker. He glanced up at the soldier beside him and smiled sadly. "And…I really don't think it does."

Czesław knelt down next to him. "I didn't figure."

Poland contemplated the question a little longer. "It hurts less when you're winning," he added, "But it…you still, like, _feel_ that someone out there's dying. Maybe it's not your guys, but…" he slumped down further, his back pressed up against the cool concrete. "There's still blood on the field when the day's done, you know?" Poland watched the brunette, studying his face as he digested the information he'd been given. The Nation laughed quietly. "Ew, now I sound old. Like, I could be your grandpa."

Czesław granted his country a lopsided grin, leaving behind his serious expression in favor of a more cheerful disposition. "It's okay. You still have your looks." He patted the blond on the head. "But didn't you know? When you sound old but you look like a kid, that's when they call you wise."

Poland stretched out his arm and wiggled his legs. "One of the perks of immortality," He tightened his grip on the rifle in his hand. "Let's-,"

_Get out get out get out._

"Something wrong?"

Poland frowned momentarily, then quickly shook his head and pushed up onto his knees. "Nah, just another battle I need to get to," he bluffed.

"Ah." Czesław stared at him expectantly, obviously waiting for more of an explanation. "Now?"

"Uh…it can wait a little." The blond peeked upwards, out the window. "I'm a bit preoccupied, you know?" He sighed. "This would go so much faster if there were, like, two of me or something."

"Allies."

Poland nodded, scowling at his injured arm for a moment as he adjusted the angle of his gun; he wasn't used to shooting this thing one-handed. "Germany's got Austria and Prussia to help him out." He grinned. "Although they might be _preoccupied_ too." He caught the expression on the young soldier's face. "They don't like each other."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm. Cats and dogs," He aimed out the window, squinting, tongue lolling out the corner of his otherwise-pursed lips. The Nation squeezed the trigger. "There!" He sat back, careful not to put any weight on his injured arm, and smiled broadly. "That might distract them for a little while."

Czesław followed his country's line of sight. "That was Germany?" he asked.

"The one with the bullet in the shoulder? Yeah," Poland sighed. "I was kind of going for his head though. He moves too much." His smile was drawn sharply into a pout. "I swear, the other day I got this _perfect_ shot…" The blond tapped his fingers on his gun and let out a tired sigh. "Well, whatever. There's always next time, right?"

"Right."

The problem was that, by this point, every fiber of Poland's being was screaming at him to go. Time was running out. The battle was almost over; another was almost beginning. There really wasn't much of a next time, then, especially since it was doubtful that Germany would be wherever Poland had to go next. The invading Nation would need to finish up at Wizna before moving on to the next inevitable fight scene. Poland, on the other hand, just needed to make like Italy and run.

As in,_ needed_.

"I-I have to go," the blond choked out suddenly. Czesław turned to blink perplexedly at him, studying the expression on Poland's face: a mix of frustration, sadness, and the need to vomit.

"That other battle must be pretty important," he advised the Nation beside him, still crouching below the window. "You ought to get along, then, don't you think?"

"I always hate leaving the…the lost causes." Poland mumbled miserably, staring down at his gun. "It feels like I'm…like, cheating or something. Except meaner."

The soldier sighed. "K- Poland, you just do what you need to do, okay? And you trust the rest of us to hold this line-,"

"But you won't," the immortal spat, interrupting angrily. "I, like, already _told_ you; we _lose_ this one."

"You're sure?" Czesław said after a pause. Poland nodded, shame-faced. "Then you definitely need to go. Now," he spoke up and over the beginnings of his country's protests. "I can't claim to understand _exactly_ how this...this Nation thing works, but if you _are_ Poland, if you really are my country, in flesh and blood, kneeling beside me in a blood-stained concrete box on the front lines…"

Poland stared at him.

"Then you getting out of here is exactly what the soldiers—_your _soldiers, remember?—are fighting for." Czesław reached over and patted the boy on the head again. "We're fighting for you, kid."

There was a long…well, it wasn't a silence, exactly. The guns didn't stop, the shouting kept on. But between the soldier and his country, not a word was spoken. Wordlessly, Poland reached out, his fingers closing tightly around the material of Czesław's cap. He pulled it away, revealing the brunette chaos beneath it, and tucked it away into his coat before breaking the understood-to-be sacred silence. "If you don't mind…" he said softly. Czesław smiled.

"Take back our country. That's all I ask," he said simply, watching as Poland stood up, careful to stay away from the window. The Nation's grip tightened on his rifle.

"Um…bye," the blond mumbled. "I'm sorry-,"

"Believe me, if I have to go, this is the way I want," the soldier beamed up at him, and Poland sniffed, fighting back tears. "Protecting my country."

"In that case," the blond said, leaning down and gently kissing Czesław on the forehead. "Your country thanks you."

"Stay safe, kid."

And Poland bolted, managing to at least hold back the waterworks until he was out of the bunker. He ran for the next battle, wherever it happened to be and whatever it happened to bring with it, silently thanking the ragtag band of bedtime story heroes on the firing line that he was leaving behind.

-o-

_September 11, 1939  
Bzura River, Poland_

War sucked. That much should really be obvious.

However, there were different degrees of suck. Fighting in the rain, for example, sucked more that fighting on a bright and cheerful sunny day. Fighting on two hours of sleep sucked more than fighting on eight. And fighting Poland while dealing with Prussia sucked more than fighting without either of the two Nations in the general vicinity.

The current situation, therefore, wasn't as bad as it could have been. Yes, there was a battle going on, and yes, Austria was losing, but it wasn't _completely_ intolerable because of the glorious lack of Poland and Prussia.

Prussia was off…well, actually, Austria had absolutely no idea where Prussia was or what he was doing, and he didn't care to know. As long as he was out of sight and out of yelling range, things were pretty good in Austria's book. And to make things even better, Poland was absent as well. That part felt a little odd. Usually when two Nations were at war, they always (or something close to always) fought each other directly. This time, Austria wasn't the only one fighting Poland, so it made sense that battles would come and go without Austria being forced to listen to That Speech Pattern, but even if it _was_ three against one, he hadn't expected to manage to avoid Poland for over a week straight. The last time that he'd seen the blond was a battle on the second day of the campaign. It was currently the eleventh, and there was still no sign of him.

Austria knew this wouldn't last forever, of course. He, Germany, and Prussia were closing in on Poland, and soon they'd be at Warsaw. Battles with Poland would be unavoidable then, as would encounters with Prussia. And worse, after the fighting was over, Austria would be stuck in the same house as both of them, which could quite possibly be considered a fate worse than death. Admittedly, Hungary would also be there, which would make things considerably more tolerable, but still, Prussia and Poland in the same house for an indefinite period of time...Austria just had to hope that a miracle would happen, because that was the only way the house would remain standing. He didn't bother hoping that Poland and Prussia wouldn't argue too much or irritate him constantly. Not even a miracle could prevent that.

This was going to be…uh, what's the word? Interesting? No… Annoying? Not quite. Painful? Well, yes, but that's still not it. Hmm…hellish?

_That_ sounds about right.

Of course, the current situation wasn't particularly appealing either. Please direct your attention to the abovementioned fact that there was a battle going on and that Austria wasn't doing so well.

It would appear that Poland wasn't the only one around who was too (stubborn, clueless, insane, choose your own adjective; I'm not taking the time to pick one again) to realize he had no chance in the war. His people seemed to have the same mindset.

Austria had just finished thinking the other day that all of Poland's troops had been forced east of the Vistula river. Then came several Polish divisions to prove him wrong. Apparently the troops that had been trapped on the other side of the river and cut off from the rest of their army had decided to make Austria's life miserable with an unexpected counterattack. Austria and company hadn't run like Italy (not _this_ time, at least), but they _had_ been caught off guard, plus they were outnumbered. It hadn't ended well. He'd lost quite a few soldiers in the initial attack, when Poland's infantry had attacked his troops (well, Germany's troops, technically, but screw it, his troops) head on while the cavalry attacked on the flanks and wreaked havoc. Since then, he'd been pushed back over twenty kilometers, Poland's forces had retaken several towns, and worst of all Germany hadn't taken him seriously when he'd called for reinforcements.

And thus, Austria had been fighting Poland's forces alone, and losing to them alone, and retreating alone, for the past two days. It sucked. Oh, sure, Germany had promised to send reinforcements, but judging by his tone of _you should be able to solve your own problems, darn you, now stop bothering me_, they weren't going to be getting there especially quickly.

There was no time to worry about that now, though. If reinforcements did arrive, it would be wonderful, but Austria would have to treat the situation as if he was completely on his own, regardless of if it was actually true or not. Hint: it probably was.

Austria finished reloading his pistol and told himself to just be glad that he didn't have to deal with Poland. Bad move, tempting fate like that, because ten seconds later, a bullet narrowly missed his shoulder. Pointing his pistol at the source, Austria recognized the face of the last person he wanted to see right now.

Poland had arrived. Poland, who was supposed to be either busy losing at Wizna or at least recovering from his loss, had arrived, in the middle of the battle, out of absolutely nowhere, and Austria found himself noticing a trend developing. Not that he had time to dwell on that; there was, after all, a battle on, and now that Poland had arrived, the stakes had just gone up.

_Although maybe Poland should have skipped this one_, Austria thought once the blond got close enough for Austria to notice the blood on his uniform. There was quite a lot of it, particularly on his right arm. (Austria still wasn't close enough to get a good look, but was fairly sure that if he had been, he'd find at least one bullet wound, possibly more.) _He might have made things _better _for me by showing up. His side might be winning right now, but if he's hurt like that, he probably won't be able to keep it up. I should be able to win this if I'm fighting Poland directly; there's no way he'll win fighting one-on-one. _

(Wow. He really didn't learn his lesson about tempting fate, did he? He does it, things work out the exact way he was hoping they wouldn't, and then less than a minute later he goes and tempts fate _again? _That's just sad.)

However, Austria didn't realize just yet that he had made a mistake, tempting fate again, and thus still thought he had the advantage. "You just _had_ to show up, didn't you?" Austria called, firing at the blond and missing. "I was just thinking how nice the peace and quiet was."

"We're, like, on the battlefield. There's no peace and quiet here."

"How nice the lack of valley girl speech was, then."

"Well that's, like, totally why I had to, like, come here. To, like, totally spite you and stuff," Poland retorted, grinning impishly as he said it. He looked pretty cocky at first glance, but the blood ruined the effect.

"You shouldn't have come here," Austria pointed out. "You're in much worse shape than I am. You should have known I'd have the advantage." He fired again, and Poland yelped as the bullet grazed his previously-uninjured arm. "Face it, you're going to lose this war and you know it. Just give up. You're hurt, you're tired, you're outnumbered, and your supposed allies aren't doing a thing to help you." Austria conveniently left out the fact that Poland wasn't the only one who that description could be applied to. "All you're doing is delaying the inevitable and annoying everyone. You don't stand a chance!"

"Then why are you the one retreating?" Poland demanded, defiant, firing back at Austria with a look of pure hatred. Pain erupted in Austria's left shoulder as the bullet penetrated his flesh. "It looks to me like _I've_ got the advantage."

"I won't be retreating long; reinforcements are on their way," Austria gasped through the pain, neglecting to mention that they were unlikely to arrive anytime soon because Germany thought he was just trying to get out of doing his fair share of the fighting.

"Yeah, probably pulled from the front lines. Slows down your advance and gives my forces more time to prepare defenses. And in the meantime, you're totally still retreating. This war's not over yet, so don't start thinking you've won."

"Your defenses won't be enough," Austria snapped. "You'll still lose." _The war, at least,_ he mentally added. _This battle, I'm not so sure. Unless reinforcements get here soon, I'm in trouble…_

-o-

_September 11, 1939  
Bzura River, Poland_

Gilbird flew next to Prussia's head as Prussia headed to the next battle as fast as the horse he'd commandeered (without actually bothering to let anyone _know_ he was commandeering it; there was probably some wonderful chaos going on right now as people tried to figure out where the missing horse was) could go. Prussia wasn't too concerned about the fact that his bird was following him into battle. He'd brought Gilbird to plenty of battles, and bullets just had a way of avoiding him.

So while Gilbird flew next to Prussia's head, Prussia was heading off to save the day. Or something like that. More specifically, he was supposed to be cleaning up the mess that the freeloading noble had gotten himself into.

Germany had called the other day, just as Prussia finished winning another battle and looking even more awesome than usual. Apparently Poland, or rather, Poland's forces, had gotten together and planned a counterattack against the infantry division that Austria was with (why Austria tended to fight with the infantry, Prussia would never know). Austria, pansy that he was, had been overwhelmed and called for reinforcements, and Germany had decided to send Prussia, apparently not realizing that in the process, he had essentially given Prussia the right to torment Austria for the rest of the war. After all, nobody could expect Prussia to save Austria without a few weeks of snide comments about Austria not being able to take care of himself.

Prussia grinned. This was going to be fun. First a battle, then unlimited gloating rights for the next…oh, let's say two weeks, minimum.

And the best part: he (and, you know, the rest of the reinforcements, but no one really cares about the Random Background Soldiers) had arrived at what was, according to his Nation instincts and the fact that there was a battle going off, the right place at what he could just _tell_ was exactly the right time to make a dramatic entrance. Prussia stopped the horse and dismounted, handing off the reigns to the first person he saw, then charged into the fray, not bothering to wait for everyone else.

His instincts led him along the shortest, most direct path to Austria and Poland. And by shortest and most direct, I mean the straight line that also happened to lead right through the battle. Prussia didn't mind fighting his way through; combat was always fun. But he couldn't stick around on the edges of the battle. He had gloating rights to earn, after all, and those don't work too well if you spend too much time hanging around the regular fighting and miss the real action. Besides, Nation battles were always more fun. They were like the rest of the battle, only with each army's actions represented by a single immortal person. Stray bullets tended to avoid the Nation battles, even when they were going on in the middle of the battlefield, which was convenient. And the best part: everyone knew each other, so the taunting was always good and there were always old grudges and the soap opera drama that was the relationship between most Nations to make things extra interesting. Everyone had been allies with everyone else at least once, and everyone had fought everyone else too, and the built-up memories of these situations just made it so much more fun than strangers fighting strangers because their commanding officers told them to. With humans, it was business. With Nations, it was always personal, one way or another.

When Prussia arrived at the _real _battle, the Nation battle, things were just as interesting as he'd expected. Austria was losing, of course. (How could he _not_ be, considering he was a total pansy and also his entire side was losing.) Poland, meanwhile, had an expression of defiance and Righteous Fury ™, so Prussia guessed that Austria has just made some kind of comment that Poland didn't like. Poland had the advantage in the situation: he had _more_ injuries, but they were old and looked mostly healed, whereas Austria had only one major injury, a gunshot wound to the shoulder, but it was bleeding heavily and had probably only just been inflicted. Also, Austria was retreating, and retreat was always a convenient indicator that someone wasn't doing well in a battle.

In short, Austria was losing and it was the perfect moment for Prussia to show up and save the day. Now all he needed was a battle cry.

"_SUCK IT, LOSERS!_"

Poland and Austria simultaneously stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him, completely and utterly shocked because, well, "suck it, losers." They weren't the only ones who seemed surprised by Prussia's method of dramatic entrance, but their reaction was the best because, unlike the Random Background Soldiers, they knew exactly what was going on and were…less than thrilled, to say the least.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Austria demanded.

"Saving your sorry ass. You could sound a bit more grateful."

"If you're the backup Germany sent, I'd rather lose the battle. Go away, annoying person."

"Hey, I came all the way over here to fix this mess _you_ got into, so just back off before you screw things up even more!"

Poland snickered and muttered something about flirting, then turned and aimed his pistol at Prussia, apparently hoping that Prussia would be too distracted to notice, thus giving him a free chance to win the battle early. However, Prussia was _not_ too distracted to notice, and fired at Poland before the blond was quite done aiming. (He missed, but only barely.) "Too slow and too obvious," Prussia taunted, smirking (and not letting the fact that his attack had also been unsuccessful stop him from acting cocky). "I'm not gonna let myself get distracted _that_ easily. _I'm_ not stupid." He didn't have to add _even if you and the freeloader are_ for Poland and Austria to hear it.

Poland shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

Prussia and Austria gave him identical disapproving Looks.

"No pun intended," Poland added, realizing his mistake.

"Too bad! You're still gonna pay for that!" Prussia declared, grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of a really good fight. Admittedly, the fight would be two against one, which would take some of the fun out of it…wait, no, Austria was injured. Injured and a war-hating freeloader. No way would he fight if he could avoid it. This just might end up a one-on-one fight after all. He turned to Austria. "_You_ stay out of this. You're useless even _without_ a bullet in your arm. The way you are now, you'd just make things worse than you already have. Go bandage your arm or something; just stay out of my way."

He turned back to Poland and smirked. Let the fun begin.

For a moment, nothing happened. Poland and Prussia watched each other, each trying to decide the best move. Then, as if someone had given a signal, they simultaneously sprang into action.

Prussia charged forward in an attempt to close some of the distance between himself and Poland for better accuracy. Poland immediately shifted his weight into a stance better suited for defense and held his ground. He brought his pistol up, taking aim carefully. Prussia jumped to the side just before Poland pulled the trigger, and fired a bullet of his own at Poland. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who's side you're on), he hadn't taken the time to properly aim, and the bullet went flying off into the distance without hitting anyone (at least not anyone named Poland). Prussia immediately corrected his aim as quickly as possible and fired again, this time managing to graze Poland's hip. Poland hissed in pain and gave Prussia a nasty glare as he put his pistol back into firing position, having involuntarily moved it in his reaction to the bullet coming into contact with his him. As Poland did this, Prussia quickly adjusted his aim and fired again. He missed his intended target because Poland had _moved_ while readjusting his own aim, but did manage to hit Poland in the shoulder, which could _not_ have been fun for him, since he apparently already had a wound there.

"Come _on_," Prussia complained. "Fight back properly! You're taking all the fun out of this!" He paused and considered this. "Or you could just give up now and beg for mercy," he suggested, smirking. "You _really_ don't have a chance, you know. Your whole counterattack's pretty much stopped, for one thing. Plus we're on our way to Warsaw already."

"Prussia, stop taunting him," Austria snapped. "Shoot him in the leg; stop him from running off. The war will be much easier if we capture him here."

"You're taking all the fun out of it even more than he is," Prussia shot back, then conceded, "but for once, you're right."

Poland hesitated, looking between Prussia and Austria, then at the battle around them. His eyes flicked toward the approaching tanks, which were blocking the fastest way to Warsaw.

"Yeah, good luck getting past the tanks," Prussia said. "It'll be much easier for everyone if you just give up." A pause. "There. I gave you the obligatory chance to surrender, now let's get back to the fight. Unless you want to run away, but I doubt you'll do that when you want to get through that line of tanks ahead of you. So, fighting it is!"

Poland glanced at the tanks, then at Prussia, then back at the tanks. He fired in Prussia's direction (not actually bothering to aim, and not getting anywhere _close_ to actually hitting him, but at least distracting him for half a second) as he turned and ran.

Huh.

Prussia and Austria looked at each other.

"Did he just run away in the middle of a battle?" Prussia asked. "Can he _do_ that?"

"People do that all the time, Prussia. It's called a retreat. You've done it too, you know."

"But just him, not the army. Can he run away without a proper retreat?"

"Apparently so, considering he _just_ did it. Maybe we should think about going after him? We should be able to cut him off on the way to Warsaw. We know that's where he's going," Austria pointed out.

"But he just ran in the exact _opposite _direction. You sure he's _going_ to Warsaw?"

"It's the most logical place, and where the major battles are going to be. Let's go. We'll never catch him if we chase after him across the battlefield; we'll have to—" Austria broke off. "Wait, did he just…is he coming _back_?"

"On a pony," Prussia added. "But why would he come _this_ way? I mean, he's staying toward the edge of the battle, but there's still no way he'll get through. The tanks are in his way, and I know people have been joking about Polish cavalry charging tanks, but it's just a joke. He wouldn't…_no one_ would charge tanks on a pony. It would be suicidal…and he just passed us without attacking. Without even looking at us."

"I am not seeing this," Austria muttered. "This can't be happening. He can't be _this_ stupid. There has to be some trick or…or I don't know, _something_. But he's...he isn't slowing down. Or turning. He's just…"

"He's charging tanks on a freaking pony!" Prussia interrupted at the top of his lungs, not sure whether to sound more surprised by the suicide attack or excited by the completely unexpected (and admittedly potentially pretty cool) turn of events.

The two Nations could do nothing but stare as Poland did indeed charge a line of tanks on a pony. The operators of the tanks were clearly unsure what to do, because, well, there was a lone Polish guy charging tanks on a pony, and you don't charge tanks on a pony in the middle of a battle that you still have a chance of winning without resorting to insane tactics. You just don't. (Actually, most people don't charge tanks on a pony _at all_.)

"Wait, does he even have a weapon?" Prussia asked, realizing suddenly that Poland was not, in fact, carrying any form of anti-tank weaponry, at least not that he'd seen. "I mean, I know he's got a gun, but it can't have too many bullets left. Heck, even with a gun, it wouldn't be enough. He's practically charging these tanks unarmed."

"No, he's holding _something_; I just can't tell what it…okay, now he threw it…"

The grenade exploded, engulfing a tank in flames. Poland pulled out another grenade and threw it in the direction of the line of tanks, then another. Finally, the tank operators realized that they should be shooting at the crazy guy charging them on a pony and throwing grenades, but by this point, Poland was too close for them to be able to aim accurately. He was also too close to be able to throw any more grenades without blowing himself up in the process, but that didn't matter because the grenades had served their purpose as a distraction (with the nice side effect of lowering the number of German tanks on the battlefield). Now he just had to slip through the line, which he proceeded to do.

"Oh," was all Austria could say. "Oh. That makes sense, I guess."

"This is not happening!" Prussia shouted, sounding quite thrilled by the fact that it _was_ happening. "This can't be happening. He's charging tanks on a pony. He's charging tanks on a freaking pony and _winning!_"

"Actually, he already got through. I think he _won_."

"That's even cooler! This is the most awesome thing I've ever seen!" Prussia cheered, not caring that Poland was supposed to be the enemy here.

It doesn't matter what side of the war you're on. When you see someone charge a line of tanks on a pony and _win_, you cheer because you know what? They just charged tanks on a pony. And what's more, they _WON_. If they'd gotten killed, it would be a cool but stupid suicide attack. But they didn't, which makes them more badass than you could ever be, and you _should _be cheering because you got to see the proof of it.

When he got far enough away, Poland turned in the saddle and threw a grenade back at the tanks before riding off to Warsaw at top speed. Prussia watched him go, now somewhat annoyed. He'd come here to earn gloating rights, but somehow his awesomeness had been overshadowed by Poland's…well, not _superior_ awesomeness. Prussia was the awesome one; nobody could be more awesome than him.

And yet Poland was the one who'd earned the gloating rights.

Maybe Prussia was in denial.

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Stuff:

- The first scene is the Battle of Wizna. Poland had about 720 guys, and Germany had more than 40,000. Poland was outnumbered about fifty-eight to one, but managed to hold the line for three days. Poland was kinda awesome...

- The next two scenes are the Battle of the Bzura. Basically, Poland's forces got together and caused lots of fun problems for Germany's forces. Things got disorganized, Poland's cavalry wreaked havoc on Germany's infantry, a whole lot of retreating happened on Germany's part (or rather, Austria's part), until reinforcements arrived and Team Germany won. For the record, nobody actually charged tanks on a pony during the battle. But ever since Austria brought it up sarcastically last chapter, it was somewhat inevitable that Poland would charge tanks on a pony at some point.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: I really don't have anything to say, except that there's a really awesome song about the Battle of Wizna. www. youtube watch?v=epeQwq-aYV0. Remove the spaces and enjoy!

Warsaw's Note: Rawr, rawr. Rawr.

(Yeah, we _really_ have nothing to say this time around.)

**Insert inevitable request for reviews here.**


	3. Between a Rock and a Hard Place

_Disclaimer: It's still not ours._

_Enjoy!_

**Chapter Three: Between a Rock and a Hard Place**

_September 16, 1939  
Near Warsaw, Poland_

Prussia adjusted his grip on his weapon as he quickly peeked through the window and located his target. _Good. He's on the phone, not looking at me_, Prussia thought to himself as he inched toward the door. _This just might work if I can stay quiet enough._

"You can't be serious," Austria said, standing next to the door, his arms folded across his chest and his expression rather like that of a disapproving parent. "This is a stupid idea; you're just going to get—"

Prussia cut him off with a pointed glare and a whispered "Shh! He'll hear you!"

Austria groaned and rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything further as Prussia shifted the weapon to hold it one-handed and put his free hand on the doorknob. Slowly, very slowly, he opened the door. There was a slight creak, and he froze, but nothing happened. He opened the door a little further, just wide enough for him to squeeze through. He couldn't just charge in and attack head-on, after all. Fun as that would be, his plan was risky enough as it was. Stealth was the only way he'd be able to get close enough for the attack. Charging in would just get him caught before he could do anything.

He glanced back over his shoulder. The freeloading noble was still in the same spot he'd been in. Prussia jerked his head in the direction of the room. "Come on!" he hissed.

Austria shook his head. "This is _your_ stupid idea. I'm not going to have any part in it."

Prussia shrugged. _Whatever. Your loss._

He took a step into the room, careful to keep his footsteps as silent as possible. Then another step. So far so good. Just a few more steps and he'd be within range. He crept forward another step, then winced as the door creaked. He turned to see Austria standing in the doorway, watching. Prussia rolled his eyes, wishing the freeloader would _do_ something for once instead of expecting everyone else to do it for him.

Well, no time to worry about that now. This was _his _moment. He crept forward. One step, then another. Finally, he was within range. He brought up his weapon, aimed carefully and—

"Germany, look out!" Austria called.

Germany turned just in time to get out of the way of the ice-cold water from the bucket in Prussia's hands. "Prussia, what the heck?!" Germany demanded.

Prussia ignored him and turned on Austria. "_You traitor!_" He stormed over to where Austria stood and dumped the remaining half bucket of icy water in the noble's face. Austria's smug expression promptly vanished.

"_PRUSSIA!_" he gasped, pulling off his glasses and drying them on his sleeve.

"I can't believe you warned him!" Prussia exclaimed as if he hadn't said anything. He gestured wildly with the water bucket in the process, flinging the last droplets of water around the building before finally losing his grip on the bucket, which flew off to the other side of the room where it nearly took out a Random Background Communications Officer, who fortunately ducked just in time.

"I can't believe you were going to dump water on me while I was on the phone," Germany interjected. "You could have ruined the equipment. You should have known better."

Prussia didn't seem to hear. He was too busy tackling Austria and yelling about Austria being a traitor. The situation devolved from there into a kicking, punching, and in Prussia's case, Mariazell-pulling battle to the death. Prussia quickly gained the advantage by taking Austria's glasses hostage.

"Give those back!" Austria demanded, reaching for the glasses. Prussia held them out of reach.

"Say please," he taunted, grinning. Austria gave Prussia a look of pure hatred, but nobody ever found out whether or not he would have given in to Prussia's demands because at that moment, Germany snatched the glasses out of Prussia's hand and gave them back to Austria.

"Cut that out," Germany snapped, still annoyed by Prussia's lack of concern for the communications equipment. And, you know, the fact that Prussia had tried to dump water on him. He picked up the phone again, keeping an eye on Prussia and Austria just in case. "I'm sorry about that," he told the person on the other end. "Prussia and Austria just arrived and…well, they're in the same room and therefore need adult supervision to make sure they don't kill each other and any bystanders within a hundred-foot radius. Can I call you back in about five minutes?"

"He does realize we're both older than him, right?" Prussia muttered. Austria glared at him in response.

"You're not acting like it," Germany told his brother as he hung up the phone. "Now let's go outside where there isn't any expensive equipment you two might ruin."

"Hey! I _prevented_ him from ruining the equipment!" Austria protested as he led the way outside. Germany ignored him.

"I thought you two were supposed to get here _yesterday_. What took you so long? Please tell me you haven't been fighting with each other the whole time."

"Actually, not as much as you apparently expected," Prussia said. "We fought Poland a lot, though. We almost captured him a couple times, but he always managed to get away. That plus the battles we just happened to run into on our way slowed us down a lot."

"You ran into _that_ many battles?" Germany asked skeptically.

"No. We ran into Poland that many times. Mostly because we were trying to chase him down and capture him. We caught up with him a couple of times, but he kept squirming away from us."

"And, since you were unsuccessful in your attempts to capture him, Poland is…where?"

"We lost him yesterday," Austria said. "He had a head start and we didn't see which direction he went. We know he didn't come here, but we don't know where he _did_ go."

Germany considered this. "He's probably trying to find a way to get into the city at the moment, but it won't matter for long. Russia's on his way, or he will be by tomorrow. Poland should be drawn away from Warsaw in order to try and stop Russia's invasion. While he's gone, we'll weaken the city with our siege as much as we can. The more we can weaken his capital and his people while he's away, the weaker _he'll_ be when he gets back. Assuming he _gets_ back, that is."

Prussia groaned. "Russia's coming? Seriously? Does he _have_ to?"

"That's been the plan from the start."

"Yeah, but it's _Russia_. Can't we just tell him we've got it under control? We can win this without him."

"Believe me, I'd love to. I don't like Russia either. But we have to just pretend to get along for now and go along with the treaty. We'll get around to fighting Russia eventually."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I was just hoping we'd end this before he got involved."

Austria raised an eyebrow. "Did Prussia just express a desire for a war to end _sooner_? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?"

"Shut up. You know you're thinking the same thing," Prussia snapped. "I just don't want to deal with Russia." He paused. "Although, now that I think of it…"

"You can't dump water on him," Germany interrupted. "Or set a bucket of water over the door. Or anything else. We're supposed to be allies with Russia. Act like it."

"Worst alliance ever," Prussia muttered. Germany and Austria looked like they wanted to disagree with him out of habit, but they refrained, mostly because they felt the same way. But they didn't get much choice in how they acted toward Russia because their boss had instructed them to be friendly.

Being a Nation was often quite similar to being a kid with an interfering parent who insists on dictating who their child can and can't be friends with. The reasons for this interference varied wildly, anything from "play nice because if you tried to fight this guy, he'd squish you like a little bitty bug on the sidewalk" to "play nice for now so he'll never expect it when you squish _him_ like a little bitty bug on the sidewalk", but the result was the same regardless of the reason: Nations often had to be friends with (or at least pretend to be friends with) people they didn't like. Admittedly, the reverse situation, when someone's boss told them to be enemies with someone they cared about, was much worse, but that didn't make it _fun_ to pretend to be best friends with one's sworn enemy.

Prussia did not like the current treaty with Russia _at all_. However, Germany had been expecting this, and had already made preparations to keep Prussia and Russia as far away from each other as possible.

"Fortunately for everyone, Prussia, you shouldn't have to deal with Russia all that much. _I'm_ going to meet up with him. _You_ are going to be in charge here while I'm gone, which will hopefully prevent you from interacting with Russia, which will at least make it a little less likely that we'll end up at war with him before we finish taking over Poland because you did something undiplomatic."

Prussia promptly proceeded to demonstrate that Germany's concerns about his self-control were completely valid with a dazzling display of immaturity: sticking out his tongue at his younger brother. Then a thought struck him. "Wait, what about Austria? Is he staying here or going with you?"

Germany shrugged. "Whichever he wants to do."

"Because both options are so appealing," Austria muttered.

"Well, I'm leaving as soon as I finish my phone call," Germany told him. "You have until then to make up your mind."

"In the meantime, can I go fight something now?" Prussia asked.

"Yes. By all means, go. Fight." Germany paused and considered this. "Fight someone other than Austria. And Austria, you figure out if you're coming with me or staying here. I'll be off the phone in a couple of minutes."

Prussia grinned at Austria. "Caught between a rock and a hard place, huh?"

"Yes. Very much so."

-o-

_September 16, 1939  
__Paris, France_

France and England did not like to see this much of each other in such a short period of time, but their bosses had insisted. So, for the second time in as many weeks, they were having a meeting. The setting wasn't one that either of them would have liked: France would have preferred somewhere with access to wine, and England would have preferred somewhere with more people so that France would have to keep his hands to himself. But you can't really hold a war council in a restaurant. The plates and glasses take up the table so you can't spread out maps, there's too many other people around who might be spying for the enemy, you get weird looks from anyone who overhears you talking about blowing people up with grenades, and most of all, it just feels _wrong_ to talk about killing while enjoying a nice dessert.

And thus, France and England found themselves seated in a meeting room. It was not an adequate substitute. Despite the aforementioned problems with holding a war council in a restaurant, there was one advantage to it that meeting rooms simply didn't have: alcohol. This alone would have made it worth the extra trouble to have the meeting in a restaurant, but unfortunately, France's boss had disagreed, and had installed the two of them in a meeting room instead.

France was ninety-nine percent sure that his boss had done this just to keep him from getting to enjoy a glass of wine or two while working. Probably as revenge for the latest in a long line of late-night phone calls about France's conduct while drunk. Admittedly, it hadn't been France's _fault_ he was drunk; surely nobody could expect him to deal with the outbreak of another war while _sober_. But alas, his boss had still been awoken in the middle of the night by a phone call from the police, and had not been pleased. This meeting location was presumably his revenge.

That, or he just didn't want France and England planning a war while under the influence of alcohol.

Whatever the reason, the two Nations were seated at a table with a map of Europe between them, colored pins marking the locations of troops. Various extra pins were in a little box next to the map, and England was absently sticking the extra red, white, and blue pins into the map in the shape of the Union Jack, completely ignoring the fact that there was (probably) not a Union Jack shaped fighting force assembled in Siberia.

"So France, how's your offensive going?" England asked as he stuck a line of red pins into the map. "Seeing a lot of combat?" His expression made it clear that he already knew the answer and was eagerly awaiting France's response, which would open the floor for mocking of the complete uselessness of the Saar Offensive.

"We captured several villages," France responded, neglecting to mention that the villages in question had already been evacuated by the German army by the time his troops had arrived. It wasn't the ideal response. The villages were pretty irrelevant overall and there hadn't even been any resistance. But it at least sounded better than outright _admitting_ the complete uselessness of his token offensive.

"That should do a _lot_ to help Poland," England sarcastically agreed, lining up white pins next to the red ones. "The loss of those useless villages is going to really mess up Germany's strategy. You might have just turned the tide of the war."

"Oh no, I think the real credit for that should go to your propaganda leaflets. The way you're using the destructive power of your bombers to drop harmless leaflets is just inspiring," France retorted with equal quantities of sarcasm.

"That's not all I'm doing!" England snapped, apparently bored with the sarcasm game and ready to start in on a real argument. France marked a point on his side of his mental scoreboard.

"Right, right, you're also using your bombers for _reconnaissance_. That does _so_ much more to help Poland."

"You're calling _my_ contributions useless? Look at yours! You captured a few useless villages that didn't put up any resistance anyway, and you stopped completely after you captured a few miles of forest. Are you even bothering to _pretend_ to be at war with Germany? At least I've blockaded him; that actually _accomplishes_ something!"

"It doesn't help Poland," France pointed out.

"Nothing you're doing is helping either!" England retorted, jamming a blue pin into the map with significantly more force than necessary, bending the pin in the process. France marked down another mental point as England tossed the pin back into the box and replaced it with another. "Admit it; you haven't even bothered to participate in that offensive of yours, have you?"

France shot England a dirty look, having hoped to keep that little fact a secret. A point for England, then. "And _you_ haven't even bothered to fly a single one of your propaganda bombers, have you?" England's expression confirmed France's suspicions and added another point to France's side of the scoreboard. Normally this was the time where the argument would devolve into either petty insults or violence, but neither seemed like an appropriate response to Poland's imminent destruction. Even France and England knew when there were more important things to worry about than who won an argument. "Face it: _neither_ of us has done much," France added, mentally tossing the scoreboard over his shoulder.

England sighed. "I guess you're right. I suppose it's not much of a surprise, though, considering how we really just allied with him to prevent Germany from starting a war and…well, that failed completely. We weren't ready for a war and we _really _didn't want to get involved, so…I mean, I feel _bad_ about not helping more, and I know we really _should _have done more for him, but by this point…"

"But by this point, we both know that Poland hasn't got a chance no matter what we do, so it looks like this war is up to us now," France said as England completed his Union Jack and sat back, looking at it rather proudly. "The war in Poland isn't going to last much longer, and no matter what we do now, we're not going to be able to do much for him."

"Right," England agreed, looking back up and not noticing as France began dismantling his Union Jack and rearranging the pins into the French flag. "We should have sent more help to Poland, but it won't change anything now. There's no point in worrying about what we could have done differently. We'll find some way to make it up to Poland after the war. For now, we need to focus on the long-term."

"So we'll force Germany to come to us."

"And once we defeat him, we'll be able to free Poland. He'll be okay for a little while at Germany's house," England added, not sounding entirely convinced of this last point. "I mean, he'll probably annoy Germany by dressing up in girl's clothes and trying to sneak a pony into his bedroom, and he'll probably try some kind of resistance thing at first, but sooner or later, he'll learn to stop doing stupid stuff and not get himself into trouble and he'll be fine."

The corners of France's mouth twitched as he tried to picture the insane cross-dressing Nation as a resistance fighter and failed rather spectacularly. "Right. He'll be fine," France repeated, sounding even less convinced than England. "And we'll get him out once we defeat Germany anyway. Maybe he won't even be there for too long." France started adding more white pins to his flag in order to make the white part equal in size to the blue part. "And in the meantime, are we agreed that we should switch to a defensive war and make Germany come to us?"

England nodded. "Yes. Agreed. So you should be able to bring your soldiers home. Take them away from all that dangerous fighting you're putting them through."

France bit back his first choice of responses to that. "We're ending our first war council with an argument?" he asked.

"What did you expect? It's tradition for there to be at least one attempted homicide at every meeting that doesn't happen in a public place."

"True," France agreed. "One more thing before this devolves into violence, though: I think we should officially decide to have a war council like this at least once a month until the war is over. Even once the fighting starts over here. That way we can coordinate strategies with each other and anyone else who allies with us."

"Once the fighting starts over here, it'll probably be best to use the official Nation meeting room," England pointed out. "It might annoy Switzerland to have us over every month, but at least we'll have a guarantee that Germany won't kick down the door and start shooting in the middle of a meeting."

"Agreed," France said, starting on the red pins. "But until then, let's keep meeting here. I don't think Switzerland would risk compromising his neutrality by telling Germany, but it's probably best if we don't let anybody know that we're having monthly war councils instead of monthly diplomatic meetings, at least not until we have to. The fewer people who know, the lesser the chance that someone will accidentally let something slip. Just because Germany can't barge into the official meeting room and start a fight doesn't mean he can't listen outside the door."

England nodded in agreement.

"Now we've got two options," France said as he placed the last pin on his flag. "We can try to kill each other, or we can move the meeting to a public place where violence is less likely to break out. Preferably a public place with alcohol."

England considered this for about half a second. "I vote for alcohol."

"War council adjourned, then."

-o-

_September 17, 1939  
N__ear Białystok, Poland_

Poland had learned many years ago not to trust Russia.

Honestly, the guy had never been one hundred percent _okay_ up in the attic, you know? Then there had been Bloody Sunday, the Bolshevik Revolution, communism and all that jazz, and now the guy was just straight up bonkers. And so, when he and Russia had signed that non-aggression pact back in '32, Poland had thought, "Like, no way does this actually mean anything." And then they had extended its effects until 1945, and Poland had told himself, "Seriously, this is just a useless scrap of paper. I could, like, line a litter box with it." And he had thought about it, too, but he would've had to get a cat for that to work, although he supposed he could've borrowed someone else's… Recently, Russia had left a message with Switzerland saying that he would be happy to continue supplying raw materials and even stuff for the war to Poland, who had laughed when Switzerland had relayed the information. It turned out that Switzerland had laughed too when Russia told _him_, all sarcastic-like, but then Russia had joined in, and that had creeped Switzerland out, so he'd hung up. The point was, no matter how supportive the massive Nation to the east seemed, Poland couldn't bring himself to trust him. That suspicion, as it turned out, had been well founded.

Poland shifted in the matted brown chair he was sitting in, extremely uncomfortable with the situation. A good deal of this was because seated across the room from him was Russia, the Master to his Doctor. The Izaya to his Shizuo. The Joker to his Batman. Or something.

The other reason Poland was uncomfortable was that his chair smelled like dust and old.

His defense was in tatters, more and more of his country was in German hands by the day, and he had no idea what to do about it. That was how Poland felt _before_ he learned that Russia's army had crossed his borders. And for all of Russia's talk of supporting his western neighbor, for all of their treaties and plans, Poland hadn't expected to be anything less than screwed. The plan—the backup plan—had been for the troops to retreat and then get their bearings, regrouping at the Romanian Bridgehead in the southeast. There they would focus on defense, holding out until France and England arrived with help from the west. But with Russia barging in from the east, his borders right up against the Bridgehead, the plan was shot. The defense was shot. Morale was shot. Hope was shot. Poland had been shot, too, but that had been a week ago and Nation healing had long since taken care of that.

His spirit, however, remained intact.

"You know," the blond spoke up, fixing Russia with a disinterested frown, "You can't do this."

Russia smiled at him. Russia had been smiling at him and would remain smiling at him. Russia _smiled_; it was just what he did. "Why not?" he asked far too cheerfully, expecting the answer but having the diplomacy to wait quietly for it.

Poland waved his hand. "The non-aggression pact. The one we renewed, even. The Riga thing. And a whole bunch of other stuff. You're, like, way out of line here."

"Ah." Poland tried very hard not to twitch as he waited for Russia to offer his counter-argument. "Those are…no longer relevant."

Something creaked in the back of Poland's throat. "No longer…what?"

Poland had been on his way to who-knows-where when he'd run into Russia. And company. Vastly outnumbered, as he'd been alone, he'd been forced to agree to the invading Nation's polite offer of a "little chat." And so, he'd been led off to the nearest house, wisely abandoned by its owners, to speak privately. Poland had expected Russia to try and intimidate him. He had been right. He had also expected to be unaffected by the bigger Nation's scare tactics.

That part was not going so well.

"Your country has collapsed. Your government can no longer protect its people. Germany is too much for you, _da_?"

Poland's eyes narrowed and he countered Russia's language with his own. "_Nie_."

Russia ignored him. "The Polish state has ceased to exist…again."

"_**Nie**__._" _Seriously? The partitions? Low blow, Russia._

"All agreements between our countries must be useless, then!" Russia beamed, a kid in a candy store. "So, I've come to protect my sisters' people."

Poland allowed himself to fume silently for a few moments, grumbling, "Because you're so _good_ at protecting people. "_Shut up, Poland! Are you trying to get yourself killed?_" demanded Poland's common sense, which sort of reminded him of Lithuania. It was good to have an Inner Lithuania to jog his memory about these things, because the real Lithuania wasn't speaking with him at the moment, nor had he been speaking with him for a good number of moments. The whole "annexing Vilnius" thing hadn't gone over well, even if it had been around seventeen years ago. Liet sure could hold a grudge…

Russia spoke, yanking Poland abruptly back to reality. "Just surrender, little Poland," he coaxed. "It would save everyone a lot of trouble."

Poland rolled his shoulders upwards in a lazy shrug. "I don't know. Maybe I like causing trouble."

Russia shook his head slightly. _Oh, you… _"It would also make me very happy."

Poland had enough sense to read between the lines. The alternative was angry, and making Russia mad at you was like signing your own death warrant. Nevertheless, the blond Nationscoffed. "Russia, I would never _dream_ of making you happy."

A chuckle. "No, I'm sure you wouldn't."

Poland chewed his lip. "What are you getting out of this? Specifically, I mean." Russia smiled still, bafflingly, _unnervingly_, and said nothing. Poland nodded slightly. "Hmmm. And how long 'till he stabs you in the back?"

Russia cocked his head to the side. Poland's cautionary tone didn't seem to have registered. "That will not happen."

"Right. You first, huh?" Poland leaned back against his chair. "Argh, I don't know which one of you I, like, hate more! Who do I root for? This is so totally frustrating." He let out a harsh laugh and rapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, listening to the makeshift drum's subtle music. "My people," he said eventually, sitting up straight, getting ready to give a grand yet pithy speech about why the attack was doomed and how the citizens would rise to defend their land, their neighbors, their home. "Are stronger than you think-."

"But you are weaker than they know." Russia interrupted matter-of-factly, shutting down Poland's lecture and bulldozing whatever was left of the thought.

Poland stared at him, mouth still slightly open, searching for an adequate comeback and coming up empty handed, whatever few clever lines he'd thought up falling out of his reach. The bulldozer had done its job. He blinked. "I'm…" Sucking in a breath, he turned his head away and scrambled for his composure. "You're wrong." he said eventually, quietly.

Russia gave him a pitying look and Poland felt a chill crawl down his spine. "All of your defenses have been failing recently, haven't they?"

Poland swallowed, his hand sliding absently down the side of his face. He stood up, choked out the beginnings of a rebuttal, abandoned that course of action, and stalk-stumbled towards the door, the sounds of gunfire and screaming echoing in his head. He wished the war would be over quickly; he wanted to win. Poland was not naïve enough to think that he could have both.

-o-

_September 17, 1939  
__Changsha, China_

China hated war.

Once _again_, most nations did—most people, really. China, however, had a particularly strong dislike for it. War had broken everyone's heart, sure, but the difference between China and, say, England was that the only wars that could make the island Nation cry were the ones that he lost. China had a family, whether its members were willing to admit it or not, and when they were hurting, so was he.

So it was a sadistic choice, then: be lonely or get hurt, even more than necessary. A nasty enough conundrum on its own, but the real problem arose when you had to fight someone you loved. At that point, you were just beating back the inevitable heartbreak as much as you were the enemy's advances. It was certainly possible to fight a war with someone and remain on good terms. However, time went on. Friendships were forged in the furnace of war and grudges were shaped by the perpetual cycle of love and hate. In other words, remaining on good terms had about a marshmallow peep's chance in the microwave of working out.

Don't put a marshmallow peep in the microwave, by the way; it's a waste of the gooey goodness. If you don't like marshmallow peeps, I suppose you could go ahead then, but don't use a yellow chick or a green rabbit. That's Gilbird and Flying Mint Bunny you're nuking, you know.

China's war with Japan had been going on for a while now, really since 1931, although it had escalated from "incidents" to proper battles. In '37, however, they'd reached the "total war" phase and hadn't looked back since. He'd had a bit of help from Russia and especially Germany, but that had become much less of a thing in 1937 with the start of the actual war. Shame, too, because fighting could be very lonely when you had no allies, and even more so when you couldn't drop in at home and give someone a call. Japan was obviously out of the question, and Korea had been locked up at Japan's place since 1910. China's relations with Hong Kong had been sort of awkward since the Opium Wars. Taiwan would've been happy to talk to him, but she would've felt like she was taking one brother's side against the other's, and China would've hated to make her feel guilty. If he was desperate, Germany wasn't such a bad guy, but he was undoubtedly too busy and surely wouldn't have been home.

Russia probably would've answered, but that was in no way worth it. Ick, he was so creepy.

Besides, he would've had to have someone to fight in his place when he was visiting home, and which again posed the problem of partners. If you had allies, you could take breaks. This was a luxury you could not afford when you were flying solo. But China was used to fighting all by himself, and he would be fine, because he always was. Besides, when you had allies, you had to agree and coordinate and cooperate, and all of that was just a troublesome addition to the pre-existing confusion.

You were definitely better off alone. China was sure of it.

Of course, China had been losing a lot recently, which poked a few holes into the Lone Wolf Hypothesis. But that was war for you, he supposed. You lost battles, sometimes more often than you would like. Well, really, always more often than you would like. Seriously, who wanted to lose battles? Now that was just stupid, although perhaps if it were a weird strategy of some sort…

Flicking his ponytail over his shoulder, China turned his attention to the Karabiner 98k in his hands. A gift from Germany. China would've preferred something cuter, but Germany had meant well. It was a nice rifle, sure, but it just wasn't cute. Most people would've scoffed that it was a _gun_, it wasn't supposed to be cute, it was supposed to _shoot things and make them die_…or something similar, anyway. China wasn't most people, though, so he was allowed to be the exception.

Ah, Germany. China's relationship with the serious European Nation had certainly had its ups and downs, but China's relationships with everyone had gone through ups and downs. And, for the moment, while neither he nor Germany would go so far as to call the other their BFF, OMG, China had to admit to at least some fondness for Germany.

Besides, if he wanted to beat up England, then China was with him all the way. Ugh, if you wanted to talk about awkward relations…there were cultural differences, there was "west thinks this; east thinks that," and then there were England and China, one of the funkiest relationships the world over. They fought, which made them mad at each other, and then one of them would inevitably _win_, which just made things worse. Then one of them would just have to do something _nice _for the other, tipping the scales from the stagnant sort of fury to the "argh, blarg, jump over the table and kill you" sort of fury. Honestly, they were better off just being raging jerk-faces at each other; it improved the general state of their relationship tenfold.

When you got down to it, though, China just had funky relationships with everyone.

Including Japan, who was shooting at him at the moment. China figured he ought to do something about that. Perhaps he should apply that not-so-cute rifle to the situation and see what happened…

-o-

_September 19, 1939  
__Changsha, China_

Have you ever noticed that you can't smell something, good or bad, after it's been around for a while? You can get used to a funny scent pretty quickly, and then you forget all about it. There's nothing to visually remind you, and you eventually assume the cause is gone. Say, just for example, that the gas has dissipated. Unfortunately, we all know what assuming makes out of you and me. Of course the gas is still there, and it lingers for days, too. The effects might not kick in for hours, maybe even twenty-four of them, if you're lucky. But when the symptoms _do _start up…well, then you're probably going to die a horrible death in your own personal hell.

Unless you happen to be immortal, anyway. Yes, a word of advice to all of you unkillables out there: you're going to want to avoid coming in contact with mustard gas.

Japan had his reservations about employing the deadly gas against China, as most people with any miniscule amount of conscience would. It went against the Geneva Protocol, for starters, and there was a good reason for it. Mustard gas was a sadistic killer, and the small island Nation could not deny that it would be particularly cruel to his unsuspecting immortal enemy. However, Japan had _warned_ China that a war between the two of them could only end with his self-proclaimed big brother getting hurt, and perhaps this would be enough to convince him that surrender was in his best interest. That was Japan's goal. He didn't _want_ to hurt China and he never _had_ wanted anything of the sort, but if the older Nation forced his hand, Japan would not—_could_ not—hesitate to inflict any amount of pain necessary to teach China the dangers of opposing the Japanese empire yet again. He had tried before, but the lesson didn't seem to have stuck. So this was for his own good, really.

Really.

But China was stubborn, as he always had been, and Japan would have to teach him the hard way. That was China's choice, of course. Not Japan's. China always picked the hard way. Even though Japan had _told_ him and _warned _him and _showed_ him…

And it really was for his own good.

(You just keep telling yourself that, Japan.)

Few things in war could cause such an introspective debate as weapons of mass destruction. Few things out of it, too. The funny part was how you could weight this against that and that against this, but you had no power to change anything, no matter what you decided either way. You would think the personification of a nation would have more say in what their country got up to, but this was not the case. They provided counsel when it was wanted, they fought in the bloodiest and most brutal battles when it was needed, they watched their people suffer when it was unavoidable, and they watched them prosper when it was possible. They could argue, they could whine, they could lock themselves in a White House broom closet in protest, but they couldn't change anything on their own. It could be incredibly frustrating when they didn't agree with their boss, as every Nation had unhappily realized at least once upon a time.

Fortunately for Japan, he and his boss had come down on the same side of this debate. They had to do whatever was necessary, after all. The important thing was to make it clear to China (and, oh _right_, his government) that resistance was futile and defeat inevitable, because it was Japan who knew what needed to be done. He had strategies and he had plans and he would make the Asian Nations a family once again. Wasn't that what China wanted? Wasn't that _good enough_ for him? Why couldn't he just _shut up_ and take the _chance _that Japan was offering him and…?

Japan removed his fingers out of the first he'd unconsciously made, oblivious to the newly-liberated droplets of blood and to the pale white cuts where his nails had dug into the skin of his palm. China's stubbornness was not an issue. Japan would crush him either way. This much was obvious, especially if you took history into account. The First Sino-Japanese War had been an absolute disaster for China, both the country and its Nation. It was undeniable proof that Japan was stronger than China, smarter than him, better at war…and yet China still continued to insist that he knew what he was doing. He could not _possibly_ know what he was doing because if he _did_, he would not be in this position. If he knew what he was doing, England would not have _devastated_ him in the Opium Wars. He would not have allowed his _precious family_ to be ripped apart. He would not be caught in the vicious snare of a civil war. Japan would have had an ounce of respect for him left. If China knew what he was doing, he would not have been so vulnerable. Pathetic. _Disgusting. _Japan couldn't be blamed for this war. He couldn't. Everything was China's fault. _He_ was the reason that Japan had to hurt these people. _He_ was the reason Japan had needed to invade. _He_ was responsible for the pain and the suffering. _He_ was weak, and he was _wrong_, and he refused to allow the stronger Nation to do what was necessary to _fix everything_. This was all his fault. This was his choice, not Japan's. Yes, China was the problem and Japan was the solution. It was by no means a complicated equation.

And under such circumstances, China's beloved "little brother" thought the older Nation ought to be taught his place. It would be painful, yes, but the most memorable lessons were.

-o-

_September 22, 1939  
__Brest-Litovsk, Poland_

Russia did not particularly want to be here, thank you very much.

It wasn't the location or the event that he objected to. Poland might not have been his absolute favorite place to be, but he wasn't particularly opposed to it either, especially when he was invading. The location wasn't unpleasant and neither was the event; there was nothing objectionable about the military parade currently underway (although Poland might disagree on that point, not that it mattered since Poland wasn't there anyway). The location and the event were more or less fine. The problem was the company. Namely, Germany.

Russia and Germany did not like each other. At all. And yet here they were, standing together and watching troops parade by instead of fighting each other like Nations who passionately hated each other were _supposed_ to do. Their bosses were to blame for that: Russia's boss had insisted that Russia play nice for now, and Germany's boss had presumably done the same. All because of the treaties and meetings and other assorted measures put in place to tell the world that Russia and Germany were best friends forever, and were most certainly _not_ personally offended by each other's continued existence.

Needless to say, Russia and Germany certainly were _not_ really best friends forever. However, the treaties and meetings meant that they had to pretend, at least for now. And best friends forever are supposed to do best friend things, like invading Poland together. Of course, when you invade a country together with your best friend in the whole wide world, you just _have_ to do fun things to commemorate it, like taking lots of pictures for your scrapbooks or having joint military parades.

Thus the current situation.

The original plan had been for Russia's troops and Germany's troops to march together, but there had been a slight complication with that proposal. Namely the fact that Russia's troops were tired from the long march to Brest-Litovsk, whereas Germany's troops were very much not tired, having been in the city for the past couple of days. When you put tired troops next to rested ones, the tired troops have a slight tendency to look a little inferior, and Russia certainly hadn't wanted that, so he'd suggested instead that the Soviet troops enter the city separately, although _of course_ he would be willing to stand and review the parade with Germany, who was, after all, his best friend forever.

And so Russia and Germany stood, watched the troops parade by, and passionately hated the world of politics for keeping violence from breaking out. They passionately hated each other too, but that part should be obvious by now. Russia just kept reminding himself that he'd get to fight Germany soon, and it worked wonders for keeping him from doing anything that would tick off his boss, even though it wasn't really all that true. "Soon" was not the most accurate word to use, but "in a few years" didn't have quite the same ring to it, so Russia didn't let himself think it. Instead, he kept up the less accurate version of his mental chant and bribed himself to behave with the mental image of the look on Germany's face when he was utterly crushed by the power of the Soviet Union at the moment he least expected it. Russia strongly suspected that Germany was using a very similar technique to keep from doing something undiplomatic, bribing himself with a role-reversed version of Russia's mental image.

Russia knew perfectly well that Germany planned on backstabbing him at some point in the future, the same way Germany knew perfectly well that Russia planned on backstabbing _him_. It was one of _those_ alliances. The ones where neither party plans to stay allies for long, and everyone knows it, but each party thinks that it'll be okay because they'll be the one to backstab first. Of course, one party had to be wrong, unless by some crazy and thoroughly unlikely coincidence both parties backstabbed each other at the exact same moment, but Russia wasn't concerned. Germany wouldn't be willing to break their nonaggression pact this early. Germany wouldn't want to fight Russia until he could focus all his resources in that direction, so Russia could at least be confident that Germany wouldn't even think about invading until he'd crushed France and England. Germany wasn't stupid enough to divide his resources to fight a two front war.

Russia, meanwhile, could invade Germany as soon as he wanted. He wouldn't do it immediately; first he'd gather up the weaker Nations. That part would take no time at all; the example of Poland would be enough to intimidate most of them into doing whatever Russia wanted, and if anyone _wasn't_ intimidated, Russia would just use force. Either way, it wouldn't take too long, and then he'd be able to start preparing to fight the real enemy, while the real enemy was still distracted and thoroughly unprepared to fight him.

Of course, in the meantime, they had to pretend to be best friends forever, which meant that Russia had to stand here with Germany, watching troops parade by in something that was currently referred to as a military parade, but which Russia had decided was really a ceremonial departure of the German troops from the city. The slowest ceremonial departure ever, of course (or maybe that was just Russia's imagination slowing time down the way that imaginations often do in unpleasant or annoying situations), but a ceremonial departure nonetheless. Because best friends forever don't just leave, they make a big deal of saying a long and drawn out good-bye, which is all fine and good for _real_ friends, but gets quite annoying when the friends in question actually hate each other's guts.

Russia rather wished that Germany would just _leave_ already. Germany presumably wished the same thing. And yet the politics refused to let it happen, because even though everyone, Russia and Germany included, knew otherwise, Russia and Germany were best friends forever and ever.

-o-

_September 26, 1939  
Warsaw, Poland_

Nations fought wars all the time. All you had to do was open a history book to see that. But not all wars were created equal. Some wars were the result of grudges, or moral conflicts, or an argument about cooking gone horribly wrong. Then there were the wars that all started because someone's boss was miffed at someone else's boss, or because someone was friends with someone who's boss was miffed at someone else's boss. Arguments happened, diplomacy failed, and the bosses ordered the Nations and their friends to go beat the snot out of each other to find out whose opinion was the correct one. Sometimes this kind of war happened in conjunction with grudges or moral conflicts or arguments, but sometimes it didn't. Sometimes Nations didn't actually _care_ all that much about the war. When that happened…well, there were still conflicts, still fighting, but there tended to be a whole lot less animosity. Wars happened when you were a Nation. Everyone ended up fighting someone they didn't actually hate at some point.

Some wars were vicious arguments taken to their logical extreme. Other wars were just business. The Nations fought, sure, but they didn't hold it against each other.

This wasn't quite one of those wars, but it was pretty close.

To be completely honest, Germany didn't particularly _care_ all that much about taking over Poland. He sure wasn't opposed to the idea (more territory was always a nice thing), but he wasn't exactly doing this out of some kind of passionate, burning hatred. Sure, there were border conflicts that had absolutely infuriated his boss and kick-started the invasion, but Germany had a pretty good idea that Poland hadn't been the one behind those conflicts. The conflicts had just been too convenient, considering that they had happened _just_ as Germany, Prussia, and Austria had finished preparing for war on their boss's orders.

No, Germany was fairly certain that the border conflicts had just been the excuse for an invasion. They might have been genuine, sure, but more likely, his boss had set them up or provoked them somehow.

And yet, Germany didn't particularly care.

Nations fought each other all the time, and there had certainly been flimsier excuses than border conflicts. The point wasn't to prove to the world that the enemy Nation was the spawn of the devil and had to be destroyed for the good of humanity. The point was to just not look like the bad guy when you took over. After all, it was the other guy who had started it. If he got in over his head, it was his fault.

Border expansion was a perfectly valid activity for a Nation. Particularly given the unfair treatment that Germany had received after the last war, which, regardless of what France seemed to think, Germany was _NOT _responsible for. After going through all that humiliation, Germany deserved for something to go right for him. He deserved a bit of living space.

(Besides, Poland may not have been the spawn of the devil, but that didn't mean that this invasion wasn't for the good of humanity. Poland was _annoying,_ and nobody liked dealing with him. And here was Germany, wiping the nuisance off the map. It was a public service.)

Anyway, the point here is, Germany didn't really care all that much about fighting Poland. Living space was great, but the acquisition of it didn't necessarily mean that he had to harbor a passionate, burning hatred of the Nation he was taking it from. Fighting Poland was just business.

Of course, the next stage of the war, fighting France and England…that was going to be fun. But, business before pleasure. Before he could move on to the real enemy, Germany had to finish up his pest control assignment. And _that_ was what he was doing right now, with a major infantry attack on Warsaw. Of course, even without the infantry attack, it was only a matter of time. The city was under siege, after all, and between the constant bombardment and the lack of food, water, and medical supplies, Poland would have to surrender soon in order to save his people.

Until he did, however, they were still at war. And Poland sure didn't look like he was in the mood to surrender right now, although his assortment of injuries told a different story. However, Germany had learned during the course of this invasion that Poland was a whole lot more stubborn than Germany or anyone else had expected, so Germany wasn't looking at his injuries for an estimate of when the older Nation would be ready to surrender. And this was exactly the right choice, as Poland's injuries said that he'd be ready to surrender any second now, whereas Poland himself was saying something more in the realm of _never_. Germany's best estimate as to the actual answer was _an injury or two from now, when he passes out from blood loss_, although he wasn't even entirely certain about _that_. Poland was _very_ stubborn.

Germany rather wished he could just cause those injuries right this moment and end the war now. Couldn't Poland _see_ that this was just a waste of time, that Germany was going to win the war no matter what?

Well, the problem wasn't whether Poland could see it. The problem was that _of course_ Poland could see that it was only a matter of time, but that wasn't going to stop him from fighting until he couldn't fight anymore. Which meant that the ideal solution to the question of pest control would be to put a bullet in Poland's brain.

Unfortunately, Poland was making this rather difficult by doing his best to put a bullet in _Germany's_ brain.

After an annoyingly long space of time in which Germany and Poland shot at each other from behind whatever cover they could find, Germany finally grew frustrated. "Poland, just _give up_!" he snapped. "You know you're going to lose."

Poland briefly peeked out from around the corner of a building. "I will _never_ surrender to you!" he yelled, punctuating his words with bullets that very nearly found new homes in Germany's flesh.

Germany got back behind his building in a hurry. "Look, you've held out well, you've done better than I expected, you've put up a very impressive fight, but at some point you have to accept that it's _over_! You can't defend Warsaw forever!"

"Watch me!"

Germany sighed and shot at Poland some more. Poland shot back, neither of them hit the other, and the status remained quo for a minute or two before Germany managed to graze Poland's side with a bullet. Poland yelped, got behind his building as fast as he could, and yelled an assortment of unprintable things at Germany. Germany didn't actually understand any of them, but he did get the general idea.

Germany rolled his eyes. "He does realize that I don't speak Polish, doesn't he?" he muttered to himself as he took advantage of the distraction to charge forward toward Poland's position. Either he wasn't fast enough, though, or Poland was just that used to getting shot by now, because when Germany got there, Poland was ready for him and greeted him with gunfire and a yelled "get the hell out of my country!"

Germany, needless to say, backed off a little, as he most certainly had not expected Poland to have recovered that quickly. He got the corner of the building between himself and Poland, but that meant nothing because a second later, Poland was around the corner of the building, gun blazing, and Germany was getting another building between himself and Poland.

"It doesn't matter what happens here, Poland! You know you can't hold out for much longer!" Germany called. "Sooner or later, you're going to have to admit defeat."

"You're the one retreating!"

"And you're the one under siege! You're the one constantly getting bombed! You're the one whose civilians are going to die if you don't surrender soon!"

"Never! I could…I could break your siege! Break through your lines, get, like, supplies for my people…"

"Good luck with that," Germany called.

"Or I could…I could…I…I don't know, but I'll, like, think of something! I have to! I won't surrender. Not to you, not to anyone! I'll find a way out of this. You won't win!" Poland yelled. The words were brave, but his tone was desperate, and his voice wavered a little toward the end, as if he was trying to keep from crying.

"I think I already have."

"No you haven't! If you'd won, you wouldn't be _retreating_!" Poland snapped, firing off more bullets at Germany.

"You're still under siege. Your people are still dying! Even if you push back this attack, there's going to be another. I can keep this up as long as I need to, and you _know_ that. I know you don't want to admit defeat, but sooner or later you're going to have to face the facts. You've_ lost_! Give up!

There was a long silence, or at least a long period with gunfire but no words, before Poland finally responded.

"Germany, I, like, don't know how many times I've told you this, but repeating it is getting old," he called. "I will _never_ surrender to you. Now _get the hell out of my city before I send you home in pieces_!" He punctuated this with a shot that, either through skill or a very dramatically timed stroke of luck, hit Germany in the arm, causing the invading Nation to nearly drop his gun. Poland followed up this attack with several others just like it, which weren't as successful as the first because Germany got behind the building as quickly as possible. However, while Germany was doing his best to avoid getting shot, Poland was advancing on Germany's position, as quickly as his injury would allow, and by the next time Germany went to fire on him, Poland was a whole lot closer than Germany had expected, not to mention the fact that he fired before Germany got a chance to. It wasn't the fatal wound Poland had hoped for, but the bullet did appear to have hit Germany squarely in the shoulder. Germany retreated a bit more, now with Poland chasing him.

"You won't win this war, Poland," Germany called. "You _know_ that!"

"I won't surrender. _You_ know _that_, or at least you should. This is _my_ country, and I will _never_ let you have it! _Now get out!_"

Germany really didn't have much choice in the matter, as Poland now had the advantage, at least in this situation, at least at this moment. The older Nation was defiant and stubborn, but Germany knew that even if Poland had managed to repel this attack, he wouldn't be able to keep going for much longer, not if he wanted his people to have a chance at survival. Germany knew it, and he suspected that Poland did too.

* * *

**Authors' Note**

Historical Stuff:

- So, the siege of Warsaw. Basically, Warsaw was encircled and, well, there was a siege. Team Germany kept trying to break into the city and Poland kept kicking them back out. This continued for the rest of the month. Meanwhile, Germany kept bombing the place, and Poland was greatly lacking in food and medical supplies.

- And meanwhile, France and England are having a meeting and somehow managing to have a rational discussion without devolving into petty arguments. Unfortunately, this rare instance of rational discussion involves France and England deciding that the best solution is to let Germany come to them and to stop France's (somewhat useless) offensive. This scene represents the first meeting of the Anglo French Supreme War Council, which probably did not involve pins being stuck into a map in the shapes of flags, or the meeting being adjourned in order to obtain alcohol.

- Aaaaand Russia invades Poland on September 17. Germany and Russia had their Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that secretly divided up the continent into their spheres of influence, and because of this pact, Russia helped Germany invade Poland. He said he was protecting his sisters' people, but he was really interested in getting his share of Poland's country.

- And now we start covering Japan and China's side of the war. Beginning with the (first) Battle of Changsha, in which Japan tried to take Changsha from China. During the battle, Japan attacked China with mustard gas, which is _seriously_ nasty stuff. You'll see why in the next chapter.

- Now we cut back to Europe, where Germany and Russia have met up in Brest-Litovsk. Yeah, so Russia and Germany _do not like _each other. They pretended to be friends, of course, but they hated each other and planned on double-crossing each other.

- And now we return to Warsaw, where Germany attempts to break into the city and Poland kicks him out. This happened repeatedly. Poland knows that he's going to have to surrender sooner or later, but he won't quite admit it to himself yet. It's not the military situation that's causing him problems; he's got forces and weapons and all that stuff. The problem is the massive number of civilian casualties.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: Yay, we're almost done with the invasion of Poland! It's not that I don't like this part of the war, but...well, finding sufficient information on the battles here can be pretty difficult. Besides, soon we'll get to the invasion of France, and that part of the war involves Prussia working with Rommel, which is going to be _very _interesting to write. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. See you next week!

Warsaw's Note: ...I tried very hard to write today, but Pirate England came to visit my thoughts instead. Now I have a plot bunny to kill and just as much writing to do as I did this morning. You guys, I'm gonna die.

In other news, please, please drop us a quick review if you're reading this! You can't see it, but Warsaw is making great big puppy dog eyes at you.


	4. The Black Veil of Patriotism

_Disclaimer: If it wasn't ours last week, it probably isn't ours this week either._

_Enjoy!_

**Chapter Four: The Black Veil of Patriotism**

_September 28, 1939  
__Warsaw, Poland_

_Should not, would not, could not. _

That was Poland's point of view on the prospect of his surrender. The very thought of it made him grimace, and if he had to use the term, he spat it out like the most vulgar of concepts. "Surrender" had become a dirty word once again, and he refused to let it escape from his lips unless it was in the negative.

_Poland is not yet lost as long as we still live!_ Wasn't that how it was supposed to be in the end? A tattered, beaten country still standing strong in spite of everything its enemies had thrown at it? It couldn't have come to this, could it? Cornered, bloody, scared, trying not to cry as his soldiers and his capitol—his beautiful, _beautiful_ Warsaw, his very heart—surrendered to Germany and his troops.

You might think that being conquered got easier, that maybe you got just a little more used to it over time. It never did. Every surrender was like a knife to the heart; it was the worst feeling in the world, hands down. To have your country essentially dissolved and made a part of another, to have someone tell you that you weren't _you_ anymore, you weren't a sovereign nation, you weren't_ anything_… It never got easier, and you never got used to it. Poland sat, huddled in the corner of an alleyway, nervously fingering the cloth over the bandages that he hadn't bothered to unwrap from his arm and had left hidden beneath the sleeve of his coat. The wound they'd covered had healed long ago, but Poland simply hadn't had the time to take them off. The thought hadn't so much as occurred to him yet. He'd had so much else on his mind, defending a country that simply couldn't keep up.

"_I always hate leaving the lost causes." _

Poland rocked back and forth, trying to simultaneously choke a mouthful of air down into his lungs and mask his breath on the off chance that Germany would hear it. To be honest, it was more Poland's by-now insurmountable paranoia than anything, but he still couldn't quite bring himself to calm down even the slightest bit, not so long as he knew that Germany was closing in. The more he thought about it, the sicker the weakened Nation felt. He kept frantically reviewing battle after battle in his head, wondering where he'd gone wrong and if he could possibly have prevented his loss by doing _this_ instead of _that_ or going _here_ instead of _ther_e. Poland wished more than anything to go back and try again, because, just maybe, he could've been in the right place at the right time to step on the right butterfly to fix this unacceptable outcome.

Poland swallowed nervously and stroked the barrel of his gun, his grip tightening and then loosening every so often, a habit born of frenzy and fear. He kept the rifle close, just in case he needed to use it. Just in case he _could_. He shoved a few tangled, dirty locks of hair away from his eyes and glanced out into the street, scanning the area for his enemy. There was no sign of his pushy and heavily-armed neighbor, but Poland couldn't help but hesitate in the darkness of the alley, not quite ready to make the dash into the fully exposed road.

Poland had two goals: to meet up with a few members of his government, and to get out of the city and run for some place safer, not that anywhere in his country really applied. He was entertaining the idea of splitting for France's; his so-called ally would have no choice but to take him in, if only at the behest of a guilty conscience. Poland scowled. England and France, Europe's great powers, had been utterly useless to him. While the eastern country had to admit that he hadn't expected to have them at his back on the front lines, fighting alongside him at Wizna or Westerplatte, he had dared to hope that they would do more than drop a few leaflets, blockade Germany—_whoop-de-do_—and put on that pathetic excuse for _any_ sort of offensive that France had been so kind as to muster up for him. On the other hand, Poland reasoned miserably, if he had been able to hold out longer, he would have given them more time to prepare and they could've lent a _real_ hand to his increasingly desperate war efforts. He hadn't been so lucky, but at the very least, Poland figured he would at least get a place to stay out of the deal. If he could get out of his defeated country, anyway.

_Poland had always liked when people claimed that resistance was futile, because that meant that he got to prove them wrong. _

Poland risked another glance out into the open street. No sign of Germany yet, but he found that more worrying that comforting. It was highly unlikely that the victorious invader would be anywhere but right on Poland's tail. Fortunately, the ability that Nations had to sense others of their kind mostly applied to the battlefield, so Poland could at least count on the fact that Germany would have to find him the old-fashioned way to give him what little comfort such knowledge brought. Perhaps, the fearful country wished pitifully, he had been held up by business. There was surrender to witness, after all. Germany had won the war. Well... Poland mentally reworded his sentence, holding tightly to any shred of hope he could find. The troops of Poland may have laid down their arms, but if Germany expected the same from the Nation himself, he certainly had another thing coming. Poland had far too much fight left in him to give up now, and he suspected the same of his people. He would've smiled at the thought of the resistance that he knew Germany would have to deal with, but recently, Poland had found himself too tired to smile. Too sad. Too beat up. Too nauseous. Too all of the above, at once.

_"My country on the front lines, huh?" _

_"Always." _

_"That's almost poetic." _

Poland shouldered his rifle and reached for his pistol, taking a chance and darting out into the street. If he was lucky, Germany had remained with the army. Granted, that still left him Prussia and Austria, and it was unlikely that all three of them would sit back and relax while knowing that Poland was still out and about, ready to tear their victory to pieces at the first possible opportunity. Poland hurried down the empty lane, heading for the address he'd been given by a messenger from his boss. There was an apartment building where he was supposed to meet certain members of his government—as Poland had always known, neither he nor his people were much for giving up. Poland slowed to a stop as he approached the next corner, peeking around to the next stage of his path, making sure it was reasonably free of danger. _Some_ trouble Poland could handle. That was what the gun was for, after all. Had he seen anything, he would've put a bullet in it and kept running, but the coast was blessedly clear, so Poland picked up his pace again, trying to ignore both his growing fear and the nausea that just wouldn't go away. He blamed it on the loss; Nations never felt quite well after the country they represented took a nasty beating, and, really who could blame them?

Poland screamed suddenly as a bullet tore through the back of his shoulder, only a few inches away from hitting his neck. He dropped his pistol from the sheer shock of it, giving it up in favor of safety. His hand flying upwards to cover the damaged skin, he dove for the nearest cover, the very welcome side of a building, and reached for his rifle with the hand of his uninjured arm, now painted bright red. He couldn't possibly fire his rifle, not at this distance and not with this injury. How long had Germany been _right behind him_? Had he just gotten unlucky, or had he been leading his enemy the entire time? Poland swore under his breath and angled his rifle to use as a melee weapon; he had serious doubts in his ability to shoot it one-handed. Knowing that he wasn't getting away from Germany—_is it even Germany?_ he wondered—at this point, as he would've been hit somewhere much more fatal before he'd covered any distance at all, he could only hope to buy himself a little time to get out of sight. He glanced quickly down at his arm, hoping he wouldn't leave a blood trail or something as he tried to escape.

Germany rounded the corner and Poland launched forward before his invader—not conqueror, _never_ conqueror—could have a chance to prepare. Germany almost managed to get out of the way of the butt of Poland's rifle, and although it the corner of it hit his arm, he maintained focus. Poland swore again, ducking out of Germany's way and into the street. Germany turned and fired at him; it was a good shot, but Poland saw him coming and ducked out of the bullet's way even before his enemy got the chance to pull the trigger. The smaller Nation's new injury was doing him no favors, especially not in close combat, and he struggled to pick up the slack. Darting back into the street where he'd been injured, ignoring the rust-colored splatters decorating the concrete, he dropped to the ground as Germany fired again, rolling towards his gun and coming up shooting. Germany was long gone, however, and the bigger Nation lashed out, the butt of his pistol coming into harsh contact with the side of Poland's head. A shocked cry escaped from Poland's lips and he fell hard onto the pavement, struggling to regain his bearings and shooting once again in Germany's general direction.

Inevitably, he missed, and scolded himself instantly for wasting the bullet. It didn't matter in the end, however because Germany's boot slammed down hard on his wrist, preventing him from firing again and snapping the bone in the process. Poland bit down on his tongue, squeezing his eyes shut, determined to neither scream nor release his weapon even as he felt the bone break. Germany increased the pressure, shifting more of his weight onto that leg. Poland gasped in pain but still kept his gun tightly gripped in his hand. Germany barked an order in his own language, and Poland pointedly ignored it. He had no use for what Germany wanted to say if it wasn't in a language that he cared to speak, after all. As punishment, his furious tormentor's other boot slammed into the blond's new gunshot wound, a sharp and horrible pain shooting out from Poland's shoulder. The Nation screamed this time, disappointing himself as he did so. His determination to keep his gun where it belonged, however, intensified.

"_Cześć_," Poland spat, flecks of blood from his lips flying upward and then spattering downward onto his face. He grinned eccentrically.

"_Guten Tag_," Germany didn't do him the polite justice of returning the smile. Poland snorted.

"Aren't you, like, _way_ cheery today?" he growled sarcastically, squirming where he lay.

The Nation standing tall above him ignored the comment. "Causing trouble as usual, I see," he said, his tone somewhere between mocking and threatening. Poland was utterly unmoved by either attitude.

"Maybe I like causing trouble," he suggested smugly, lifting his foot very abruptly and kicking with all of the force that he could muster at Germany's closest knee. Surprised by the sudden movement, the don't-say-conquering Nation stumbled to the side, keeping his balance, though only barely. The misstep was enough; it offered sufficient time for Poland to leap to his feet, if not enough for him to aim and fire his gun. He didn't bother trying, instead ducking below the height he knew Germany would fire at and barreling straight into him head first, the force of his desperate attack knocking his enemy entirely off of his feet. Not wanting to stick around and chat, Poland _bolted_, bouncing into a turn as he ran to fire off a few shots, none of them making significant contact. The first grazed Germany's cheek and one scarcely missed his arm, but the other was nowhere near its target. Poland spun around again, charging away from the concrete battlefield and making a sharp left turn, opting to take the long way to his destination in the hopes of throwing Germany off of his trail.

He ran in his newly-selected direction, changing it whenever he began to get nervous, until his sides ached and his lungs cried for air and finally, when he stumbled to the ground, he crawled out of sight and allowed himself to rest. Hands shaking, he withdrew his trusty bandage roll from within his coat and got to work on his wound, hoping that his recent action hadn't made it too much worse but doubting the chances of such an outcome. Poland didn't have the time to clean his wound, nor did he have the means to. Swallowing nervously, ignoring his parched and bloody throat, the blond frowned. The injury may not have started out quite so fatal-looking, but it had certainly progressed to that level, and he immediately set to work on a tourniquet for fear of bleeding out if he didn't.

_Stay safe, kid._

Well, that was going swimmingly, wasn't it?

_Jeez, I think he, like, hit something_, Poland thought stupidly as his arm bled at an extremely worrying speed. He began to feel dizzy as, working one-handed, he tore a piece of his already-tattered uniform jacket to place beneath the gauze, knowing it was at least softer than the bandages and also the only form of padding that he had. He balanced it on his arm a few inches away from the bullet wound, tied a quick half-knot, and looked frantically around for something he could use in the next step. He reached for a piece of debris, some sort of busted-up metal pole. It would have to do, the blond supposed, and he added it to the mismatched pile he was creating on his arm and knotted the gauze up over it. _Now for the fun part_, he thought bitterly, and began twisting the stick, wincing and letting out the occasional quiet cry as he did so, working until the tourniquet was tight. When he was satisfied with the stoppage of blood loss, he wrapped the ends of the gauze around the stick and his arm, tying them up to keep the dressing from loosening. _There_, he thought to himself, wishing very much that he could let himself cry. Instead, he swallowed his emotions and wobbled to his feet, thanking God for adrenaline and his Nation's abilities.

Exiting from his alleyway cover, he glanced quickly about the street before setting off again, unable to keep up his previous pace but unwilling to let himself move slowly. Poland had a meeting to get to, after all. In fact, it wasn't just _a_ meeting, but probably _the_ most important meeting he would ever attend, which was saying something. Nations went to a lot of meetings, and they held just as many. He hurried down the streets of his beloved home, not sure whether to be heartbroken or furious that he had to sneak and eventually settling for both. At long last, he reached the old, worn-down building in which he was to meet select members of his government. He smiled in spite of himself, was hit with a sudden surge of dizziness, and leaned over, gagging at the ground.

He retched several times before vomiting. While it was speckled with patches of blood, this had nothing to do with Poland's being a Nation. It was a lot of things: stress, terror, pain… He leaned up against the building's wall, his fingers clenched into a fist as he choked out a second mouthful of foul-smelling gunk, blearily stumbling despite simply trying to stand in place. Another round of spitting up and he felt a tiny bit better. _Good enough_. Pushing off of the sickly spattered structure, he gasped for air, used his uninjured arm to wipe his mouth, and then staggered towards the door of the building, wanting more than anything in the world to make things right and knowing that this was his best bet of doing so. He just hoped that he could stay conscious long enough to climb this hopeless Mount Everest of impossible tasks.

-o-

_September 28, 1939  
__Warsaw, Poland_

Prussia and Austria were nowhere to be found. No surprise there. They were probably off tearing up what was left of the city, fighting amongst themselves over some stupid and insignificant thing, because clearly they hadn't had enough of war yet. Germany sighed. Well, it was annoying, but it wasn't like he actually needed them to help him fight Poland. Not with Poland in the shape he was in by this point.

Of course, just because Poland wasn't in any shape to fight didn't mean he was too beat up to invoke his uncanny ability to annoy anyone and everyone he crossed paths with.

Germany had spent the better part of the afternoon trying to track Poland down. It wasn't easy, especially not after a month of relying on instinct to find him. After one too many arguments between Prussia and Austria, Germany had sent them off to search separately. And by separately, he clearly specified that he meant separate from both him and each other. Not that he thought that they had listened to that last part, if the sounds of arguing as they'd left had been any indication. But as long as they argued somewhere he couldn't hear, Germany didn't particularly care what they did. Right now, he was more concerned with Poland.

He'd finally located the other Nation, with the help of several of the soldiers occupying the city, in an old apartment building. Why Poland was in an apartment building, Germany didn't know or care. The point was, he'd been seen going into the building, and now Germany was just waiting for him to come out. He could have kicked down the door, but he didn't know where in the building Poland was, and didn't want to risk Poland slipping out a window or the door while he was searching another room. Easier to just wait outside and catch him as he left.

After half an hour of waiting in the alley next to the building, Germany heard a bird chirp about half an inch away from his ear. He jumped about a foot and turned to look at the source of this unexpected sound, coming face to face with Gilbird. The piece of paper that Gilbird had been holding in his beak fluttered to the ground, and Germany picked it up as the bird began flying in circles around his head, making him look rather like a cartoon character who'd just suffered an injury that would have caused a concussion had it been in a more realistic setting. Not that Germany realized this, since he didn't watch many cartoons. But the comparison remains just in case America happens to be lurking nearby, although what America would be doing in Poland is anyone's guess. America probably doesn't even know what a Poland is. But I digress.

As the bird continued to fly around Germany's head and make him look like a concussed cartoon character, Germany read Prussia's note. _Hey, West! The messenger guy you sent said that you'd found Poland and wanted me to meet you at Poland's house. You want me to commandeer a car on the way since yours is still at the army base, or did you already get a car? Also, can I shoot/strangle/decapitate/throw-under-a-tank/blow up the freeloading noble?_

Germany dug around in his pockets for a pen. After locating one, he turned the note over and wrote _I already got a car, so I don't need you to commandeer one. Also, no you may not shoot, strangle, decapitate, throw-under-a-tank, blow up, or in any other way murder Austria._ He gave the note to Gilbird, who took it in his beak and flew off, leaving Germany to pick up where he'd left off: waiting.

A few minutes later, the door to the building opened. Germany pulled out his gun and stepped into the open, into the path of a bloody, paranoid-looking, and suddenly very nervous Poland.

Poland muttered a phrase in his language that Germany didn't understand, due to his very limited knowledge of Polish, but which he could guess from the context was not about fluffy bunnies and rainbows. "So you found me," Poland said, eyes darting around as he looked for a way out. There was technically nothing impeding his path if he chose to run, but there was nowhere he could run to. About the only place nearby with any amount of cover would be the building, which was stuffed full of civilians who might get caught in the crossfire. "At the one second I didn't have my gun out," he added, gesturing toward the gun on his belt. He could go for the gun, but Germany would shoot him before he'd have time to use it. "Guess I, like, learned a lesson about being prepared…" He closed his eyes briefly as he realized that there was no way he was getting out of this, then looked up defiantly. "You do realize that if you drag me back to your house, I'm just going to make life hell for you, right?"

"Prussia and Austria warned me. But I'm pretty sure I can handle you."

Poland's lips twitched up into a little half-grin. "Your naïveté is adorable. I'd forgotten you're, like, barely more than a kid."

Germany's eye twitched. "You do realize I'm pointing a gun at you, right?"

"You're going to shoot me anyway. I may as well deserve it."

"And when we get to Berlin, I can make your life as hellish as I want," Germany added as if Poland hadn't said anything.

Poland just shrugged and looked Germany squarely in the eye as he said, "I'm pretty sure I can handle you," and went for his gun. Germany shot him, at near-point blank range, before he ever reached it, but that didn't matter. It was the principle of the thing. Poland had known he'd never get to the gun in time, but at least this way nobody could say he'd surrendered.

Poland fell to the ground. Dead, at least for now. Nations couldn't be permanently killed by a gunshot. He'd wake up in a week or so, and Germany would have to deal with him, but for now…blissful silence. Germany put his gun back in its holster, picked Poland up, and carried him to the car that Germany had parked just out of sight of the apartment building. He dumped Poland unceremoniously in the backseat, then got into the driver's seat and drove off.

Poland's house wasn't more than a few minutes away from the apartment building that Poland had been at, so it didn't take Germany long to reach it. When he got there, he saw the door off its hinges, presumably kicked down. It would appear that Prussia had already arrived. Germany parked the car in front of the house and got out, leaving Poland in the backseat. He wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, so there was no need to worry about him escaping. As Germany neared the house, a window was opened from the inside and a little yellow bird bearing a piece of paper in its mouth flew out.

Gilbird flew over to Germany, who took the note from him and shooed the little bird back toward the house. Upon reading the note, Germany developed an incredible urge to bash his head against something very hard and solid until he developed a concussion. The note consisted of a single question: _What if I already have?_

Germany entered the house through the doorless doorway and went off in search of Prussia. He found him in the kitchen, raiding the pantry. There was already an assortment of snack food on the counter, and Prussia exited the pantry holding a package of cookies. Ah, the spoils of war.

"Hey, did you get my note?" Prussia asked as he opened the cookie package.

Germany sighed. "If you already commandeered a car, it doesn't matter; we'll just bring it back on our way out. But since I didn't see a car anywhere nearby, I'm assuming you didn't commandeer one. If you already murdered Austria, he gets a free pass to do the same to you when he wakes up."

"Jerk," Prussia muttered. "By the way, can I take some of Poland's snacks with me?"

"Go ahead," Germany said, rolling his eyes.

By this point, Prussia's mouth was stuffed with cookie, so he just gave Germany a thumbs-up. Germany left in search of a suitcase to pack Poland's clothes in, leaving Prussia to pillage the kitchen. He eventually located a suitcase in the basement, then went to find Poland's bedroom. As he reached the second floor, he heard sounds of movement in one of the rooms, and found Austria already pulling clothes out of the closet and stacking them on the bed. Clearly, the usually-freeloading noble was ready to leave as soon as possible.

"Oh, good. You're not dead," Germany said from the doorway. Austria looked up and gave him an utterly confused look.

"Why would I be…oh. Prussia's notes."

"I said if he murdered you, you got to do the same to him when you woke up," Germany informed him, setting the suitcase on the bed and beginning to load clothes into it. "Oh, don't bother packing Poland any uniforms. He won't need them."

"Okay…I guess you're going to give him a new one to reflect—"

"He doesn't need a uniform. He's not a country anymore," Germany cut in, heading to the closet to find more non-uniform clothes.

"Oh. Um…right," Austria said, looking caught off guard by both the statement and the blunt, no-nonsense, following-orders tone that Germany had used to deliver it. Germany returned to the bed with an armful of clothes and began pulling out the military-related articles, tossing them to an unoccupied part of the bed. "So where is Poland?" Austria asked.

"In the car, bleeding on the backseat."

Austria considered this. "Can we stick Prussia in the backseat with him on the way home? Since he wanted to be in the back so badly on the way over here?"

"We'll see when we get there," Germany told him. He finished sorting the clothes and started packing the pile of approved clothing into the suitcase. When he finished, he checked over the contents and, satisfied, went to close the suitcase.

"Wait!" Prussia interrupted from the doorway. He snatched a stuffed toy, a unicorn, from the floor next to Poland's bed where it had either fallen or been deposited, and added it to the suitcase. Germany rolled his eyes, but didn't remove the pony before closing the suitcase. After finishing this, however, he gave Prussia a questioning look. "What?" Prussia said. "Maybe it'll keep him from complaining too much if he's got a toy."

Germany and Austria gave him a Look, but decided it was best to just shrug and go along with it.

"You two go fight over the passenger's seat," Germany said, handing the suitcase to Austria. "I'll catch up in a minute. And don't kill each other while I'm gone. We just finished one war; we don't need another one this soon." He watched as the two older Nations left the room, then went off in search of flammable substances. He quickly decided that the quickest and easiest solution would be the simple incendiary device he'd heard about from Spain: empty a glass bottle of its contents, fill with gasoline, stuff a gasoline soaked rag into the mouth of the bottle, ignite, and throw. Germany quickly assembled one of these handy devices, minus the igniting and throwing steps, then spread the rest of the gasoline and other flammable substances he could find around the house before leaving with a lighter and his glass bottle of imminent destruction. Austria and Prussia were waiting in the car. Austria appeared to have the advantage in the war for the passenger seat, since he was sitting in it and trying to fend off Prussia's attempts to take over his spot from the back. Germany ignored their antics and walked out to a safe distance from the house, lit the makeshift fuse on his bottle of gasoline, and threw it through the vacant doorway of the house. It smashed on the carpet just inside and the flames began to spread almost immediately, licking at the carpet and wallpaper.

Germany walked toward the car without looking back. Inside the car, Prussia and Austria watched the house burn, their fight having ceased the moment the bottle had shattered and ignited. As Germany walked toward the car without looking back to see the house go up in flames behind him, the sun began to set over the city of Warsaw.

At the beginning of the war, Prussia had lamented the lack of a dramatically appropriate sunrise to illuminate the moment as the twenty-nine dive-bombers headed off to war. He hadn't gotten his wish for a dramatic scene to begin the war, but now that he got a dramatic scene to end it, as the house was engulfed in fire, he couldn't help but realize that it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, a simultaneously awesome and terrible picture, a beautiful and yet tragic scene…and he hadn't thought to bring a camera.

Germany started up the car and drove away, not once looking back.

They were nearly out of the city before Prussia and Austria found their voices again. Prussia was the first to speak.

"Um…uh…Germany? Why did you…I mean, I know you didn't want Poland to be able to go home again, and it was I guess symbolic of getting rid of the country, but…why did you, you know, burn the house down?"

Germany turned to look at his brother. Prussia was leaning back in his seat. His posture appeared pretty casual, but his expression betrayed his concern and worry despite his obvious attempts to hide it. Poland's limp body had been shoved into the seat next to Prussia, curled up in a near-fetal position, looking very small and, thanks to his many injuries, utterly pathetic. Out of the corner of his eye, Germany saw Austria leaning a bit away from him, clearly nervous. He turned back to the road and shook his head to clear his mind. It felt like coming out of a trance.

"I…" he trailed off, trying to find the words to express his answer and in the process realizing that he didn't know the answer. "I don't know. I just…" he shrugged. "Well it's…it keeps Poland from trying to run away since he doesn't have anywhere to go. And, like you said, it's symbolic. I just…I don't know, it just…made sense."

"Oh…um, okay..." Prussia trailed off. Germany looked back at him. Prussia still seemed concerned, but he didn't say anything further so Germany went back to driving. After a minute or so of silence, he glanced over into the passenger seat. Austria was watching him, looking as nervous as before, or maybe more so. When Germany turned to him, Austria quickly looked away.

"Look, I got a little carried away, but it's not that big a deal," Germany said. "You don't have to look at me like I'm about to go crazy. I'm sane, I swear."

Austria nodded, apparently in agreement, but still looked worried.

"Cheer up," Germany tried. "The war's over. We're headed home. Oh, and Austria, Hungary's coming over to drop off some of her things next week. She's going to be spending a lot of time at the house."

At this, Austria managed a smile.

"Yay, another freeloader," Prussia said from the backseat. "Now we'll have two freeloaders, plus Germany, who'd have to relax to be overly serious, plus Poland, who's just…" he trailed off, searching for a word before settling on "insane."

"And Prussia, who's arrogant and obnoxious and whose habit of picking fights is only going to make things worse," Austria added.

Germany sighed and rolled his eyes as he continued driving down the road. Prussia and Austria were right: things were going to get quite interesting at home. And that was nothing compared to what was going to happen once the war picked back up again and even more people ended up living with them.

World domination had its downsides.

-o-

_September 28, 1939  
__London, England_

This was one of those days when you shoved everything off of your desk onto a messy paper mountain on the floor and curled up in your chair with a pot of tea and a plate of cookies. Actual cookies, by the way, as in those soft, kind of crumbly things that you couldn't really dunk in your tea because they would get all soggy and fall apart a little bit, possibly bleeding melted chocolate all over your fingertips in the process, depending on how hot your tea was and the type of cookie. A gift from America, because apparently he thought England couldn't cook or something. Such a silly boy. You had to wonder where he'd gotten an idea like that…

England sighed, one arm wrapped around his knees and the other hand curled around a steaming cup of Earl Gray. The war in Poland was over, then. He could only imagine how the newly-conquered Nation was feeling at the moment. Fat lot of good he and France had done, too. England fumed silently in various directions. At Germany—how dare he attack poor Poland like that, completely disregarding the Treaty of Versailles! And Poland—surely he could've fought harder? Held out just a bit longer? And then you had France, with his pitiful excuse for an offensive that had been good for what? Nothing. No, wait, less than nothing. Just false hope that never brought any of the promised relief from the heartbreak.

And England himself, of course, with his useless promises and complaints that had been good for even less that France's token offensive.

Yeah, war sucked.

But you _knew_ that. England knew that. Poland and France knew that. Everyone knew that except those with the black veil of patriotism draped across their faces. All too often, someone's pride in and love for their country would blind them to all of the pain around them, and what horror did register only translated into more of a reason for them to keep fighting. It had its advantages, sure, but still…

It was amazing what patriotism could make you forget.

England sighed, set down his untouched tea, and stood up, moving from pouting to pacing. He had never liked losing, even less so than most people. He was pretty good at avoiding that particular result, too, if he did say so himself. So the fact that Poland, to whom he'd given his word as a Nation and a gentleman, had been defeated, and so quickly…well, that stung. And the fact that England had not been able to help him didn't just sting, it _hurt_. There was that little voice in his head again, reminding him that he'd failed. England didn't like that voice, mostly because it was right.

The Battle of the Somme, and all for ten miles, no less. Orleans—beaten by a mere girl, to France's delight. Gallipoli, his fingers crushed beneath a boot until he relinquished his gun. Hastings and all that it had entailed. Cartagena de Indias, and England had always loved his navy so. And Yorktown—that whole bloody war, but _Yorktown_, where England had bawled on his knees in the mud at America's feet and the Nation who had once been his had turned his back and walked away.

"_On your feet, England._"

It was amazing what pride could make you remember.

-o-

_September 28, 1939  
__Paris, France_

France put the phone back on the hook with considerably less control than he would have exercised under normal circumstances. The resulting sound was less of the click it normally was, and was more of a loud thunk. France didn't seem to notice this as he stared off into the distance. Or rather, he would have stared off into the distance had there not been a wall between him and the distance. But France ignored this fact and stared into the wall as if it was the distance, which had a different and much less dramatic effect than staring into actual distance would have. As you may have gathered, however, France was a bit too distracted to notice.

Poland had been defeated. His army had just capitulated, and Poland himself was likely in the backseat of Germany's car, annoying the heck out of Germany, Prussia, and Austria, all of whom were probably planning the cleanest way to murder the defeated Nation in order to shut him up without getting blood all over the car. Poland, meanwhile, was probably cursing France and England for doing a whole lot of nothing for the past month. He wasn't the only one.

France was cursing France and England for doing a whole lot of nothing as well.

Sure, Poland was annoying, and sure, he was childish, and sure, he was a little clueless some of...scratch that, _most of_ the time, but still, France had a treaty with him and he should have fulfilled his obligations. Instead, he'd valiantly fought to capture a few useless and undefended villages around the border, then pulled back before he could run into any actual danger. And _then_ he'd held a meeting with England so they could brainstorm official sounding ways to justify sitting around and not helping, and the whole thing had ended with them deciding to just ignore the treaties because they didn't feel like doing anything just yet. Instead of helping Poland, they'd decided to wait until Germany came to them, and in the meantime, Germany could kick Poland around to his heart's content.

The phone back on its hook, thunked there or not, France decided that he desperately needed a drink. So off he went in search of wine, cursing himself for doing nothing all the way.

While walking and cursing himself, France found himself wondering what working for Germany and company would be like. They hadn't seemed completely insane, at least not the violent, vaguely sadistic kind of insanity that Nations occasionally lapsed into during certain, more violent points in their history. Russia had gone even more nuts during his revolution; England had an assortment of moments he sure wasn't proud of; Prussia, as the Teutonic Knights, had been pretty horrible to Lithuania; even France may have been a _tiny_ bit out of character during his revolution and during the Napoleonic Wars. Nations just snapped sometimes, usually when their government was up to not-very-nice things, like killing a bunch of people or trying to conquer Europe.

But, in spite of their insane boss, Germany and company hadn't seemed any different the last time France had seen them. Germany may have held a grudge from the last war, but it hadn't escalated into full-blown insanity, so France figured that _most_ Nations would probably be more or less fine under Germany's control. Unfortunately, Poland wasn't most Nations, and Germany didn't exactly have much tolerance for idiocy unless it came from a certain Italian. Or much tolerance for annoying weirdness unless it came from a certain Prussian. Germany hadn't snapped, at least not yet (frankly, France sort of expected at least some level of snapping to occur in the future), but that didn't mean that he couldn't get very, very annoyed. Poland was probably going to get himself strangled before the week was out, although admittedly, it would probably be his fault. Unless Poland was _already_ dead…

Dead yet or not, Poland was a bit screwed, wasn't he?

Of course, this whole question of how absolutely screwed Poland was could have been avoided had France not decided that things would be better for everyone if he and England waited for Germany to come to them.

Ha. Waiting for Germany to come to them. They hadn't even tried all that hard to cover up the fact that they didn't want to fight yet, had they? But then again, they had just been too busy with the vitally important task of setting pins in a map in the shapes of their flags to worry about something as trivial as their ally's imminent defeat.

Ah, priorities.

Now in the kitchen, France located a wine glass and set it on the counter as he went off in search of a bottle of...well, right now he didn't particularly care _what_ he drank; he just wanted alcohol to kick down the door of his brain and tell the little nagging mental voices that were making him feel guilty to sit down and shut up. This was certainly not France's usual approach to alcohol, but then again, things aren't supposed to function completely normally in a war when one's ally has just been defeated because one and one's other ally decided to sit back and do a whole lot of nothing.

France grabbed the first bottle he saw, briefly checked that it wasn't something expensive that he'd later regret wasting on shutting up his mental voices, and grabbed a corkscrew, opening the bottle and pouring part of its contents into the waiting wine glass. He jammed the cork back into the bottle and carried the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other as he headed back to his office, not even bothering to wait until he got there to start in on the wine he'd already poured.

When he arrived in his office, France set the bottle of wine on his desk, not noticing or caring that he was setting it on an already precariously balanced stack of paperwork that he probably should have been a whole lot more careful around. He put the glass on the empty bit of his desk that he should have been using for actual work, transferring the papers that had previously occupied that space onto his typewriter. It was a testament to his distraction that he didn't notice when the papers immediately slid off the typewriter and onto the floor. Instead, he put his head in his hands and glared at the desk as if it was the cause of all his problems, which it certainly was not, as the desk was not Germany, nor was it France's uselessness.

Poland had been taken over, in about a month. He'd put up a better fight than France had expected, especially considering that Germany had just been bombing the place left and right throughout the whole war. That, plus Poland had been outnumbered by Team Germany. Oh, and Russia, who'd decided to team up with Germany and invade Poland for reasons that didn't actually _escape_ France, mostly because he'd never completely grasped them in the first place. Russia was insane, right? Maybe invading others was just his idea of fun. Who knew? Certainly not France.

Of course, there was another factor that had contributed to Poland's defeat, and France certainly couldn't forget this one: Poland's defense strategy had depended on France and England sending help. But alas, France and England hadn't _wanted_ to help, so they just sat back and did nothing, not even considering the fact that this course of action royally screwed up Poland's strategy. It wasn't that Poland was completely incompetent. Had he known ahead of time that France and England would be useless as allies, he would have come up with a wildly different plan. But he hadn't known, and therefore his strategy had failed a bit. Admittedly, this failure hadn't been completely France and England's fault either; _nobody_ had expected Russia to come barging in on the war like that. But still, the failure hadn't been solely Russia's fault either. France and England were to blame for a decent chunk of it, and they would take this blame and wallow in their guilt, thank you very much. Or at least France would, with the help of his wonderful friend alcohol. He didn't actually _know_ what England was up to. But he had a feeling that England was doing something similar, although he might be wallowing with tea instead of alcohol. It _was_ England after all. Either way, guilt wallowing was both necessary and justified, and if France and England were going to sit back and wait for Germany to come to them, they would do it in the manner of five-year-olds in time out, thank you very much. (Well, except for the alcohol bit. Five-year-olds didn't drink much alcohol these days.)

Hopefully, for the sake of France and England's countries, their bosses would expect something like this and would interfere in the self-imposed time outs and give the two of them a stern talking to and tell them to get back to work so that when Germany did come to them, they would be at least somewhat ready. After all, they _had_ made a plan. And while their plan may have been somewhat cowardly in regard to the Poland bit of the war, they _had_ at least intended to get Poland out of Germany's house. (France wasn't entirely sure how he and England were going to kick Russia out of the other part of Poland's territory; but that would be a problem to discuss at their next war council). They wouldn't be able to do anything for Poland if they got themselves taken over in the process of trying to rescue him, so getting taken over was something they would need to avoid.

France forced himself to stop glaring at his desk long enough to drink more wine and hopefully cloud his mind further. He went for the bottle again as he drained the glass. His hand hit the bottle, but rather than closing around it, he simply managed to knock it off the desk.

Well. That was one way to snap himself out of his self-loathing bubble. Now there was glass on the floor. And wine on the floor. Ooh, and there was a nice, long report about taxes that he'd spent all yesterday morning writing sitting in the middle of all of it and getting dyed a nice shade of red, the text blurring and becoming illegible.

What better way to spend the afternoon than redoing a piece of painfully dull work that he'd ruined while trying to become too intoxicated to remember to hate himself?

Ah, the joys of being a Nation.

-o-

_September 28, 1939  
__?_

China awoke to a world on fire. Everything _hurt_. He gasped in a mouthful of air that caught in his burning throat and died there, not making it anywhere near his lungs. Instead, he choked on the breath he didn't have until the gagging spiraled into a fit of desperate hacking that made his eyes water, continuing until he was dangerously lightheaded and his sole concern ceased to be _why does it hurt?_ and turned abruptly to _why can't I breathe?_ He gave the inhaling thing an involuntary second go once the coughing ceased, but no sooner had his chest, horribly aching sides and all, filled with sweet, blessed air than he lurched upwards and vomited. Foul-smelling, worse-tasting gunk splattered a work of art onto China's face and cascaded back down into his throat. He retched, loudly and frantically, choking on the acidic sludge and trying to avoid asphyxiating on the former contents of his stomach. Fortunately, someone gave him a hand with that last part, roughly rolling him onto his side so that he could puke onto the ground instead of into the air and, by extension, his mouth. Even that simple movement sent spasms of pain through his battered body.

China's body purged itself of more or less everything for several more agonizing minutes before he could lay back and _breathe _again, finally. When he at last managed to catch a lungful of air and actually keep it, he had an unpleasant realization about his itching, burning eyes.

They weren't working.

He tried blinking a few times, despite the uncomfortable sensation that came with each try. His brief attempt at widening his eyes had disastrous consequences—_ow, __**ow**_. China closed the lids quickly, for all of the good that it did him. He coughed so hard that it shook his entire body, sending a sharp pain through his chest and abdomen, and then he set to work on curling into a ball. He hoped it would help with the pain, which was doubtful but worth a shot, not to mention that it was really cold wherever he was. A hospital, if he was lucky, He opened his mouth and squeaked out the unintelligible ghost of a word, trying to ask where he was and failing miserably. He fumed slightly—it was _freezing_ in here—and tried instead to figure out what was going on.

He'd been fighting Japan, right? Of course he had been, what sort of a question was that? They were fighting over…Changsha? Was it Changsha? Ugh, China's memory was a bit fuzzy. Maybe he'd died; that would explain at least some of the symptoms. China shivered, drawing in a shaking breath. Whatever was wrong with him had probably killed him, or it was far along its way to doing so. The nasty part about being dead was that your body just _stopped_. Normally, a Nation's body fixed them up pretty quickly, but if something managed to kill them, their healing factor couldn't kick back in until they woke up again. Unless there was brain damage, anyway, but then it was more like they stopped being dead and started being comatose, so that didn't really count. The point was, they could wake up anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks or_ more_ later with a gaping hole in their body. That explained at least some of the pain in China's stomach. He couldn't move his hand to check, but he was pretty sure that he'd managed to make it start bleeding again. That could happen too.

_Great. Just great._

China lay back into his resting place. If it was a hospital bed, he was by far too sore to appreciate it. Still, a hospital was better than a prison camp or an abandoned field of corpses. _Oh…_ Yes, China was definitely hoping for "hospital". Unfortunately, he couldn't speak to ask for a conformation of that guess, much less see to check with his own eyes. Plus, there was a deafening ringing in his ears, making a good ninety percent of his attempts at figuring anything out dead in the water. He was pretty sure that it didn't match up with the rest of his symptoms, though. Maybe he was concussed or something. As for the other issues…the vomiting, the abdominal pain, the coughing, the blindness…yuck. China shivered again, choked on another breath, and then forced himself to twitch his fingers just enough to brush his arm. If those were blisters he was feeling, he was _screwed_. He jerked his fingers up and wrapped them around his wrist, groaning miserably as he stroked the skin, making sure to do it as gently as possible. Yes, they were indeed blisters. Painful, somewhat itchy blisters.

For the love of all things good and merciful and _cute_, Japan had gassed him, hadn't he?

China could definitely make a strong case for a mustard gas attack, now that he thought about it. If he could see, he was sure the blisters covering his body would be an ugly, disgusting yellow. Now wonder everything was going wrong with his body. Mustard gas killed the cells, destroyed the tissue, ruined the membranes. It attacked the skin and parts of the nose and throat. Blister agents were horrible and China wanted nothing more than to slip back into the blissful, painless abyss of death. Unconsciousness. Anything but _this_.

As if on cue, his nose began to bleed. _Ugh_. China thought it was blood, anyway. For all he knew, his nose was dripping brain matter down his face. He spit out a few drops that had trickled between his lips and wondered if he could get back to sleep despite his current state of agony. Sleep, he decided, was preferable to death, because he needed to heal. He had a battle to get back too, after all. The pain was making him _wish_ he could die, of course, but that paled to nothingness in comparison to the importance of doing his job and getting back to the war. China hated being cooped up in his office when there was real work to do and battles to be fought, so being stuck in (what he presumed was) a hospital was ten times worse.

China gagged suddenly, a glob of vomit sliding out of the side of his mouth, some of it splattering to the floor and the rest lingering on his face and leaving a trail of sludge as it slid down his chin. There were treatments for mustard gas victims, China grumped to himself. Something for the skin, something for the eyes. It didn't fix the problem, but it helped, or so he'd heard. They'd probably just quarantined him, though, but if he'd looked dead… Perhaps his government had stepped in? Doubtful. China concluded that he hadn't been dead, just _really close_, plus wounded and most likely concussed. He must've been a pretty severe case, but then again, that made sense, as his people had been hit, too. China was glad that they'd saved what treatment they had for those who it could really help, then. He'd heal up soon enough, medicine or no.

The important thing was that he got well enough to get back to the battle. In China's mind, that translated to seeing, walking, and lacking a hole in the stomach. It would be no worse to puke and cough and itch on the battlefield than in a hospital, after all. China began to wonder if his Nation instincts could account for the blindness (_cough, choke, wheeze, gasp_), although he doubted it. He figured, though, that perhaps if it came down to it, he could just ask the nearest person where to aim and go from there, although that was far less than ideal. He'd probably blow his finger off trying to pull the trigger. …Well, there would be no winging it while still blind, then, and the bullet wound would need to be at least _mostly _healed. China pouted. Hospitals were for mortals and for people whose very _essence_ wasn't at war. China was neither, and being out of the fight for non-country reasons made him feel like he was cheating. If there was a government problem or a meeting he needed to be at, then that would be almost fine, but being injured made him feel like a normally studious teenager faking sick to get out of a test they hadn't prepared for.

Yes, the sooner he healed up, the better.

The ball that was China curled up a bit tighter. He winced at the effort required to move his limbs a few inches. This position wasn't doing anything to reduce the pain like he'd hoped, but it was making him just a bit warmer, and that was good enough for him. He probably had a fever, too, of all things. He felt like he had one. Ick. He would've preferred a bullet wound to a fever, although he'd been _lucky_ enough to get both in the last battle. Gunshots and burns he could deal with; that was normal for a Nation. But generic stuff like fevers and nausea—they were the absolute worst.

China coughed viciously a few more times before he thankfully slid out of consciousness into the oblivion of sleep once more.

* * *

**Authors' Note**

Historical Stuff:

- On September 28, 1939, Poland's forces in Warsaw surrendered. Note that this was _just_ Warsaw, not the entire country; fighting continued in Poland until October 6. Another important thing to note is that _Poland never actually surrendered _(which is why Germany had to chase him around the city and shoot him in the head in order to drag him back to Berlin.)

- Now for the fun stuff: Poland's resistance movement. The resistance movement in Poland wasn't just a resistance movement; it was an _entire underground government, _called the Polish Underground State. Obviously, this included the army, but it also included things like underground courts, police, and schools. I really can't do it justice here. If you want to know more, I'd recomend the book The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground, 1939-1945 by Stefan Korbonski. You can definitely expect to see more of the Polish Underground State, because Poland sure doesn't intend to stop fighting just because he got dragged off to Germany's house.

- China waking up in the hospital: see, I told you mustard gas was nasty. It causes all kinds of unpleasant effects: blindness, painful blisters, respiratory damage...you know, the horribleness of mustard gas is another topic that I really can't do justice in these historical notes. (I haven't got a book to recomend this time, but there's plenty of information online if you're morbidly curious...) Mustard gas is _not_ a pleasant thing. There's a _reason_ you're not supposed to use it. Let's all send China hugs and "get well soon" cards and cute stuffed animals.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: Hello, everyone! I finally got to gush about the Polish Underground State in the historical notes. Expect to see a whole lot on the topic, because we both seriously love it. Anyway, we're pretty much done with the invasion of Poland (_finally!)_ and soon we'll get to move on to topics that we can actually find information about! Joy to the world! (Fun fact: if you ever want to send Warsaw into a rage, start singing Joy to the World. Especially the "repeat the sounding joy" part. Her reaction is hilarious!) Anyway, see you next week!

Warsaw's Note: Netflix is a bad thing for writers to have. So are plot bunnies. So is the book _Good Omens_. Boo, so little got done this week. Ah, well. In other news, Warsaw loves you all. Especially the reviewers, insert-puppy-dog-eyes-here? Warsaw also loves to write unpleasant things, like gore and vomit so, er...watch out? Yes...cheers!

**Reviews make us do a strange yet somewhat endearing dance of joy. So, please, if you're reading this...review. We like doing the dance.**

(Vilnius's Second Note: _There is no "us"._ I don't do strange dances. I don't dance at all. (I do get excited and hug stuffed animals, though...)

**Also, behold our infinite thanks to those of you who _have _reviewed. We love you! We really do.**


	5. Better Safe Than Sorry

_Disclaimer: If we'd somehow acquired the rights to Hetalia in the past week, you probably would have heard. It's still not ours.  
__Enjoy!_

**Chapter Five: Better Safe Than Sorry**

_September 28, 1939  
__Tallinn, Estonia_

Russia had always been difficult to reason with. He was one of _those_ types: even when he was wrong, he was right. Once he got his convoluted, somewhat warped mind wrapped around an idea, there was no way you were going to be able to wrench that thought out of the thorn-studded tangles. Through a good deal of experimentation over the years, people had found that, when necessary, the least stressful and most workable solution to the Russia Problem was to just go with what he said, poking and prodding him in the desired direction along the way. You had to put the words into his mouth, or he'd find a way to shut yours. Negotiating with the frozen Nation was something of an art form, and one that few people were any good at to boot.

Estonia, sadly, was not a part of that elite and fortunate minority.

There hadn't been a letter. There hadn't been a message sent via some lackey of his government. There hadn't even been so much as a phone call. There had just been Russia, smiling on the doorstep of Estonia's house. Not even the office, but his private home. At least he'd had the decency to knock, the Baltic country thought grimly. It would've been just like Russia to barge right on in like he owned the place and wait patiently by the fire until his western neighbor had gotten home from work or the grocery or wherever Estonia had been. The Baltic sighed.

"Something wrong, Estonia?" Russia asked cheerfully.

The Nation in question jumped several inches out of his chair. "No, sir," he blurted immediately, hating himself afterwards for doing so. Couldn't he at least pretend to have some control over the situation? Was it really necessary to throw his dignity away so soon? The problem, of course, was that it really _was_ necessary, and he_ couldn't_ pretend, or Russia would make him regret it more than his pride ever could.

"Good." Russia settled back into his chair. "Now about the terms of our treaty…"

Estonia, to his credit, did not react. Visibly. Inside, he fumed. At least theoretically, it would be great to have a massive, strong Nation like Russia protecting him. On paper, it was fine, but the execution was where everything went wrong.

"You and I will work together in the event of an attack by another country."

_Because Russia would never admit that his alliance with Germany means nothing. _"Yes," the Baltic said aloud, his tone as noncommittal as his words. Or word, singular, as it were.

"Should you need something for the war, I will be happy to give it to you."

_And I will have to pay for it personally, won't I?_ A small nod.

Russia continued, chipper as ever, obviously aware of the other Nation's displeasure but not showing it one bit. "You will allow my people to place military bases in your territory," he gave Estonia a Look. "The land will remain yours, of course." Of course.

_But for how long?_ The unhappy young man stared into the fireplace, watching the flames snap, crackle, and pop like rice crispies from Hell. Estonia didn't trust his frozen neighbor as far as he could throw him, and he doubted anyone but America could managed such a feat. The last thing he wanted to do was open up any doors that might invite Russia into his country and give him a foothold from which he could rise to control. Estonia had no desire to go back to working for Russia, to living in his house, to following his orders and watching his people be forced to do the same. To be fair, nobody ever wanted anything of the sort, but the difference was that _Russia was totally psycho_.

"Estonia?" the psycho in question called softly, reminding Estonia to pull his gaze away from the fire and turn it back to his forceful guest.

"Sorry," he mumbled sheepishly, purposefully avoiding Russia's eyes.

"Am I boring you, Estonia?"

The Baltic sat up straighter. "Of course not, I-I just…" he panicked, urgently trying to pacify his powerful visitor before it was too late. "More tea?" the blond managed eventually.

Russia stared at him silently, smiling his unreadable smile, until Estonia squirmed under the weight of his stare. The big Nation stood up slowly, folding his hands behind his back as he stared out the window. "It is a shame you are not interested in my proposition."

"I never-,"

Estonia was ignored. Russia continued on, his melancholy tone of voice not masking his real intentions in the slightest. "But I suppose it was obvious who you sided with."

"I'm neutral, I don't-!" The Baltic Nation jumped to his feet, anxious to plead his case. This could by no means end well, especially not if things continued on the road down which they were currently racing.

Russia cut him off again, however, this time even more harshly. "The Polish submarine that you let slip away says otherwise," he snapped, causing Estonia to step back out of pure force of habit. You knew you were in trouble when the smile disappeared. "Perhaps it would be best for you to reconsider your allegiances?"

"I don't _have_ any allegiances!" Estonia cried desperately. The last thing he needed was for Russia to go back to his boss with tall tales of uncooperativeness and misplaced loyalty. Even if Estonia knew that Russia was only concerned with his signature and had no need for such stories, the unspoken threat still lingered over his head dangerously. You never really knew, after all. "I'm not-,"

Russia backhanded him, knocking the by-now terrified Baltic back down into his chair. Estonia let out a small cry, his hand pressed against the stinging side of his face, and dared to look back up. Russia smiled down at him once again, all signs of antagonism suddenly gone without a trace. "There is no need to get upset, Estonia." he chided gently, patting the blond on the head. Estonia winced as the bigger Nation's hand made contact, squeezing his eyes shut until the slight pressure was gone.

Bad memories. Very bad memories.

Russia chuckled softly and sat back down, emptying his cup of tea of whatever had remained of its contents and setting it back down on the saucer with a _clink_. That was Estonia's cue to refill it. He leaned forward and picked up the delicate teapot, carefully refilling Russia's cup, unwilling to look at the Nation he was serving. He set the teapot back down and fell back into his chair, folding his hands in his lap and sitting quietly, waiting for Russia to speak again.

When he did, Russia picked up from exactly where he had left off. "We will not agree to any alliances that make us be enemies," he continued.

_We wouldn't want that, would we?_ Another noncommittal "Yes."

"The treaty will not affect our political or economic systems, or our independence."

Estonia's neatly folded hands clenched together. "I see." He bit back a retort. He was out of practice, he noticed. If things went the way he strongly suspected they were going to, it was entirely possible that such sharp answers would stop occurring to him altogether. It was a horrible thought. Still though, if you never thought of the offending comment to begin with, you couldn't be punished for accidently letting it slip out. _Someone ought to tell that to Latvia_.

"The treaty will remain in effect for ten years, and then we will discuss whether we want to extend it or not."

Estonia swallowed, nodded, and breathed a tiny sigh of relief that this was almost over.

"Finally, the treaty will be in both of our languages." Russia smiled happily. "What do you think?"

"That's fair." Estonia agreed quietly, still not meeting the man's eyes. The last thing he wanted was to be slapped for that, too. Of course, Russia would play nicely now. He was getting his way, after all. When he _wasn't_, the only viable solution was to get the heck out of dodge until the storm passed.

"Good!" Russia clapped his hands excitedly. Estonia was beginning to feel sick. He leaned forward to accept the pen his eastern neighbor was holding out to him. He uncapped it, staring blankly at the document in front of him.

It really did have to be done, didn't it?

So, miserably and against his conscience's fondest wishes, he signed.

Russia smiled.

-o-

_October 2, 1939  
__Near Changsha, China_

China wasn't actually opposed to the idea of being in the hospital. Healing factor or not, Nations ended up in hospitals sometimes. It happened, and you got used to it after a while. Hospitals in general were fine. The problem came in when China was forced to be in the hospital when he had something much more important that he was supposed to be doing, something he couldn't do from his hospital bed. Like, you know, fighting a war.

China didn't like war in general, and he particularly didn't like the kind of war that involved fighting someone he cared about because they had attacked him and given him no choice in the matter. But regardless of how he felt about his fight with Japan, it was still a war. His people were still fighting Japan's people, and he was supposed to be fighting Japan, not lying in a hospital bed. China may not have wanted to be in this war, but that didn't mean he was going to do this halfway. He was a Nation, and it was his job to protect his people. And if protecting his people meant fighting in a war he didn't want to be in, then he would fight in that war, not sit around in a hospital. He might not have had a choice about staying in the hospital at first, but now that he'd had time to heal up a bit, there was no reason for him to stay. He could move without throwing up (usually), the gunshot wound in his stomach was mostly healed—it still hurt, particularly when he moved, but at least he wouldn't have his guts spilling out on the battlefield—, he could walk and run and fight without killing himself in the process, and most importantly, he could see. All of that together added up to him being, if not completely healed, then at least sufficiently healed. As long as his injuries were healed enough that he could fight, he would be fine. He could heal from everything else while actually accomplishing something. And, if he _absolutely_ had to, he could always go back to the hospital after the battle. The important thing here was that China needed to get back and finish up this battle with Japan. He was a Nation, and that's just what Nations did: they fought on the front lines to protect their people.

And thus, China decided, it was time to go do just that.

The hospital staff, however, had a different idea of the situation. They had somehow gotten the crazy notion into their heads that letting their country go back to the battle and fight Japan on the front lines while injured was a bad idea, so out of some misguided attempt at keeping their country from being killed (again) or captured or something, they were doing everything in their power to prevent China from leaving the hospital until he'd healed a bit more.

Fortunately (or possibly unfortunately, if you subscribe to the theory that leaving the hospital before you're done healing is a stupid move), China had the advantage in the situation. He was a Nation, after all. Nobody ever quite knows how to tell the personification of their country that he's being an idiot. (Well, the bosses of certain Nations did, but random hospital staff sure didn't.) And if almost nobody knows how to tell their country that what he's doing is stupid, they sure don't know how to actually _stop_ him from walking out the hospital whenever he darn well pleases. So basically all the hospital staff could do was follow China to the door like a little trail of ducklings following their mother, and all try to talk him out of leaving. China, meanwhile, just had to shut down their protests by pointing out that he knew much more about Nation healing than they did, and that he'd be perfectly fine.

The hospital staff didn't believe this for a second, but China didn't particularly care, because it didn't actually matter whether or not the hospital staff believed him. They couldn't stop him either way. All they could do was pester him on his way to the door, and possibly slow him down by a minute or two, which really amounted to absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

"You can't just leave like this," a nurse protested. "Going back to the front lines in your condition is _suicide_. Your wounds are going to slow you down, and you're probably going to end up captured or killed."

China groaned. "I already said I'm going. I'll be fine; stop worrying." He then started coughing, which wasn't very good for his "I'll be fine" argument.

"You won't be fine! You shouldn't even be out of bed yet. Let the army fight this battle while you finish healing so that you can fight the next one at full strength. I know, you're supposed to fight on the front lines, but you're also supposed to _win_ when you do that. That's not going to happen if you go running off to fight while you're still hurt. Japan's at full strength, and in your condition, you're probably going to get yourself killed if you try to fight him. I understand that you may _want_ to fight now, but you should think about what's best in the long run."

China gave the nurse a Look. "I already told you. I'm a Nation. It's my job to get back to the front lines as soon as I can so that I can fight to protect my people. Everything important is healed, and anything left isn't going to slow me down _that_ much. I'm just coughing and my stomach still hurts. That's pretty much it." Except for the occasional bout of vomiting, but China wasn't going to bring that up. "I can do this. I've had plenty of experience fighting while injured. I'll be fine. I promise." At this point, he reached the door. His little entourage of concerned medical staff all began protesting at once and at twice the necessary volume, but China thoroughly ignored their protests as he left, waving good bye as he did so.

-o-

_October 3, 1939  
__Moscow, Russia_

Lithuania squirmed in his seat, very, very nervous. This wasn't particularly surprising, though, considering that the situation was one that should logically lead to nervousness for anyone with any sense whatsoever.

Seated across the desk was the cause of this nervousness: Russia.

The huge Nation had called Lithuania the other day and suggested, in his usual manner of suggesting things so that it was perfectly clear that it wasn't a suggestion at all, that Lithuania should come over to Moscow for a meeting. Lithuania hadn't particularly wanted to meet with Russia; in fact he couldn't think of many things worse than meeting with Russia. But when a dangerous, unstable, and often violent Nation calls one up and suggests a peaceful meeting right after beating one's neighbor to a bloody pulp, one does not refuse unless one is ready to face the consequences. Lithuania was not ready to face the consequences, and thus Lithuania hadn't refused. He'd come over to Moscow, as requested, and Russia had done his polite host routine, and they'd sat down to talk international relations, at which point Russia had pulled out a map of Europe.

Divided into his and Germany's spheres of influence.

Thus the squirming.

Russia was explaining that in their last treaty, he and Germany had divided up Europe into spheres of influence for them to take over, but Lithuania wasn't listening because his mind had shut down a little. Maybe a lot. He'd guess that it had shut down completely, but his heart was beating. Maybe a bit too hard and too loud, but that was just stronger proof that his brain hadn't completely stopped functioning.

Still. Russia and Germany had divided up Europe. Fear was justified. Fear was the appropriate response. Fear was also going to get Lithuania in serious trouble, one way or another, if he didn't get it under control.

He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, the pain helping his mind to focus by giving it something to think about other than Russia's going to take me over and I'm going to be stuck at his house again. Once his mind was capable of focusing on something else, not completely, but at least enough that it could multitask, Lithuania forced himself to think through the situation logically. Russia and Germany had divided up the continent. Russia and Germany were planning to take over the continent. What happens when you try to take over a continent? Other Nations get a bit upset with you and war breaks out and hopefully the saner Nations prevail.

Right.

"You can't do this," Lithuania said when Russia paused in his speaking. "You can't just divide up the continent. No one will stand for that. It's just going to lead to war and you'll…you'll be outnumbered. When everyone finds out about these secret protocols—"

Russia interrupted him. "That is why they are secret protocols," he said in the manner of a preschool teacher explaining to the class that the sky is blue. "Nobody will find out until they are supposed to."

Translation: I feel perfectly safe telling you about this because I know that you can't do a thing about it and that you're too afraid of making me angry to even try and warn anyone. Lithuania swallowed hard. Well, yeah, that was pretty much the truth. He couldn't fight Russia alone, and if he did try to warn anyone else about Russia and Germany's secret protocols, he'd be Russian territory before he could even start mobilizing his army. And Lithuania didn't even want to think about what would happen to him after Russia took over.

Which meant that Lithuania's options were pretty much limited to just letting Russia walk in, take over, and do whatever he pleased to Lithuania's country (admittedly with less bloodshed than there would be if Lithuania tried to do anything about the secret protocols, but that didn't make this option okay), or being diplomatic, letting Russia pretend that they were the best friends that he wanted everyone to think they were, playing along, and hopefully negotiating his way to a position which was, if not ideal, then at least better than getting completely taken over.

Neither option was particularly appealing, but at least diplomacy might prevent an invasion. As much as Lithuania wanted to fight, he knew he didn't have a chance, and it wasn't fair to his people for him to get them killed because he was feeling stubborn.

Squirming into a relatively tolerable position it was, then. Which meant not saying a word to anyone about the protocols, and listening politely to what Russia said, and only refusing the demands he really needed to refuse, rather than just saying no to all of them on general principle.

Diplomacy was not fun.

It was especially not fun when Lithuania had to bite back his first choice of responses, namely bursting out laughing, to Russia's first demand. The demand in question being that Lithuania allow Russia to have military bases and fifty thousand Soviet soldiers stationed in Lithuania's country.

Lithuania wasn't able to bite back his second choice of responses to the demand, but fortunately, his second choice wasn't quite as inflammatory as his first. "What."

Russia smiled, as he had been for the past…well, pretty much the vast majority of his life, and repeated the demand, as if he wasn't perfectly aware that Lithuania had heard him clearly the first time, and that his response had not been a request for clarification on the demand; it had been a request for clarification on Russia's sanity.

Although really, that was pretty unnecessary too. Russia's sanity, or rather, his lack of sanity, was both pretty obvious and surprisingly irrelevant to the current conversation.

Russia was insane, but it was a functional kind of insanity.

The functionally insane Nation went on with his demands as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. "I also want you to go along with the treaty I signed with Germany, and let him have the territory west of the Šešupė River." Lithuania opened his mouth to respond, but Russia cut him off, which was probably better for everyone involved. "I know, it doesn't seem fair to you," he said, sounding annoyingly sympathetic, "but in return, you'll get Vilnius back, plus Germany won't have any reason to bother you!" he finished, now back to his usual cheerful self.

Lithuania clenched his fists under the table and forced himself to look Russia in the eye when he told him "I'm not signing your treaty."

Russia cocked his head to the side. "Why not?" he asked innocently.

Because you've clearly gone even more insane than you already were, Lithuania thought. "Because for starters, you're basically asking me to let you occupy my country, and I'm not letting that happen," Lithuania said.

"It is not an occupation," Russia said.

"Not technically," Lithuania agreed. "But it may as well be one."

"Not necessarily. You don't have to look at the soldiers as a bad thing. They could help you if you got into trouble. If Germany invaded you, my soldiers could help fight him off."

"I'm neutral in this conflict with Germany. That alone should be enough to guarantee my security. And if I start to worry that it isn't, I can always strengthen my own army. I can take care of myself," Lithuania said, keeping his tone as neutral as possible. He was annoyed by the implication that he couldn't, not to mention by the whole situation in general, and he was more than a little nervous, but it would be best for him to sound as if he wasn't.

Russia considered Lithuania's words for a while. Finally, he said, "I suppose you're right. I don't really need to station that many soldiers in your country." He looked at Lithuania calculatingly. Or rather, as calculating as someone with that smile of his could look. "What if I reduce the number of soldiers in your country? Would you be willing to sign the treaty then?"

"Reduce the number of soldiers by how much?" Lithuania asked suspiciously. "I'm not letting you occupy-"

"I know," Russia said, his calculating look gone, replaced once more by his characteristic cheerfulness. "But what if I only station thirty-five thousand soldiers in your country? Would that be better?"

Lithuania thought about this for a minute. It was better than fifty thousand; that much was obvious. But thirty-five thousand soldiers was still a lot. Agreeing would still mean agreeing to a virtual occupation of his country. But at the same time, he wasn't sure how much more he could negotiate before Russia would lose his patience. Lithuania might be able to get the number lower. But at the same time, he might only make things worse, might only make Russia impatient. Impatient Russia might not bother with diplomacy. Impatient Russia might just invade. Lithuania couldn't let that happen.

Still, Russia wasn't impatient yet. He might be able to get Russia to agree to something a bit more reasonable before the larger Nation got bored with the diplomacy game.

"I'll have to talk to my boss about that," Lithuania said finally. "I'm not sure how he'll feel about any of this."

"Of course," Russia said.

Lithuania thought for a second, wondering if he was about to get himself into trouble with this next bit.

Well, the worst Russia could do was...well, Lithuania was quite certain he didn't want to know the worst Russia could do. But the worst that Russia was likely to do was say no, so Lithuania decided to risk it.

"I want more of the Vilnius region," Lithuania said finally. "Not just Vilnius. The Druskininkai and Švenčionys areas too. They have a larger Lithuanian population, so it's only logical that-"

Russia cut him off. Again. This was becoming annoying. "That's true," the larger Nation said contemplatively. Still smiling. Lithuania found himself wondering how exactly Russia was managing to look contemplative while keeping that creepy smile of his. "But you aren't the only one who wants that region. Belarus has also laid claims to those areas."

Lithuania was about to say something to that, probably either the argument of the century or a childish 'but it's mine' argument. It was really a toss-up as to which it would have been. However, Russia continued before Lithuania had a chance to say anything. "But I think it is only fair to return your people to their country. So anywhere where the majority of the population is yours could be returned to you. How does that sound?" he asked.

"That sounds reasonable," Lithuania agreed. Too reasonable; what are you up to? added part of his mind, but Lithuania told it to be quiet and not sabotage the negotiation process. He was already planning to discuss this with his boss to figure out how he could get more of the territory from Russia, so his objections to the prospect of giving up any of it didn't matter at the moment.

"So are we in agreement? You'll talk to your boss about the soldiers, and we can look at the populations in the territories that you and Belarus have both claimed to see which of you it would be most fair to give it to. And the territory that Germany is asking for-"

Lithuania bit his lip, closing his eyes briefly, hoping he wasn't about to tick Russia off with his next sentence. "I'm not talking to you about giving my land to Germany. If the two of you had something in your treaty about that, Germany can talk to me about it directly. I'll negotiate with him on that subject, not you."

Russia thought about this for a second. His smile might have flickered off for a moment, but that might have just been Lithuania's already nervous mind playing tricks on him. "That makes sense," he agreed.

Lithuania relaxed, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Russia might not have been thrilled with Lithuania's refusal to negotiate with him on the matter of the land that Germany and Russia had decided should belong to Germany, but he wasn't angry. Annoyed, maybe, but not angry, and he wasn't considering Lithuania's refusal to be a deal breaker. Besides, Russia couldn't justify an invasion just because Lithuania wasn't discussing the subject with him. It might destroy other Nations' opinions of him a little bit, and he couldn't allow that.

Functional insanity was, after all, functional.

Lithuania, meanwhile, headed home to talk to his boss, and hopefully find a way to negotiate his way to a better position.

-o-

_October 5, 1939  
__Riga, Latvia_

About those people who were good at negotiating with Russia…yeah, Latvia wasn't one of them either.

The smallest Baltic country sat quietly, tucked away into the corner of his couch, leaning up against the arm, shaking. Admittedly, the latter was his usual state of existence, but the mental image produced still made the intended point. Across from Latvia sat the bane of the boy's existence, his frozen neighbor to the east. Of course, one could just as easily argue that the bane of Latvia's existence was his big mouth, but that certain feature was by no means occupying a mocha-brown armchair across from its owner, nor was it demanding that Latvia agree to a mutual assistance pact with it, nor was it scaring the living daylights out of him. See the difference?

Latvia didn't want to "assist" Russia, and he wasn't too keen on _getting_ that "assistance," either. Dealing with the arctic Nation was like trying to catch a double-sided sword: you had to be very careful, very skilled, and very lucky to avoid getting cut. Besides, even if you did manage to make it out of that circus trick unscathed, the guy who threw the first blade was likely to have sent another your way.

You really just couldn't win.

Latvia found his voice. "M-Mr. Russia, I don't know if-," He cut himself off abruptly, trying to reword the sentence in his head before Russia noticed anything. But, of course, the fearful Baltic had no idea how to word the sentence in the first place, because he couldn't be sure as to what would set his large, threating neighbor off. To be honest, Latvia wasn't even sure what he'd been planning on telling him to begin with. He looked up at Russia, who was eyeing him with a dangerous and inquisitive smile, eyebrows slightly raised, eyes slightly narrowed. "What I mean is…"

"No need to be so nervous, Latvia" Russia laughed pleasantly, reaching over to pat the boy on the head. Latvia instinctively ducked out of the way, immediately kicking himself mentally for doing something so blatantly contradictory. Fortunately, Russia didn't seem to mind too much. He stood, maneuvering around the table, and sat down beside Latvia on the sofa, the smaller Nation freezing up as he did so. "Estonia though it was a good idea, after all."

"Did Lithuania?" Latvia asked. Russia's head jerked to the side, glaring down at the terrified, innocently tactless country currently trying to scoot away from him. Lithuania's reservations about Russia's offer were probably a bad thing to bring up, the blond realized belatedly. Russia's smile returned without warning, before his petrified neighbor could stutter out an apology, and he placed his large, cold hand on Latvia's shoulder, squeezing it tightly.

"Lithuania worries about Poland," he explained sweetly. "When he sees how much better everything will be, he will come back to me." Latvia swallowed nervously as Russia looked down at him. "I have always taken good care of my countries, Latvia, have I not?" The little Nation nodded weakly; anything else was tantamount to suicide. "Then why will you not sign the treaty?"

"I just don't want to get _dragged into_ anything," Latvia blurted, still shaking like a leaf.

Russia's expression hardened, but his tone remained unchanged. "You have heard the terms of the agreement, _da_? What is there to be afraid of?"

Latvia quickly tried to backpedal. "There's just been so much…fighting lately," the boy stumbled awkwardly through his desperate attempts at remedying the situation.

"I see," Russia said softly, not looking convinced but seeming to accept the excuse. Latvia waited impatiently for him to say something else. Russia commanded complete control over all conversations he had with "his countries," and Latvia wouldn't have dared to guess the direction in which this one was going to head. "You don't want to get drawn into the fighting," he asked finally. "But what do you think will happen if Germany comes for you next?"

Latvia squeaked as the thought was forced up to the forefront of his mind. It wasn't as though he hadn't considered an invasion, given the current state of affairs in Europe, but Russia was essentially presenting him with two options: be conquered like Poland, or sign the mutual assistance pact and be protected. From Germany, anyway.

That posed a second question for Latvia to fret over. Who would he prefer to have in charge of his country? Germany may have been serious and grumpy and scary, but Russia, in Latvia's bitter experience, was cheerful and friendly and _terrifying_. Prussia was a bit nuts, but with him, you weren't constantly looking over your shoulder, jumping at small noises, and always wondering if a simple statement was going to get you beaten or _worse_. It would seem that Russia was the greater of two evils, but siding against him meant that you ran the risk of him taking over anyway at some point and being awfully resentful of that initial refusal.

As Latvia frantically mulled over this and similar thoughts, Russia put his arm around the boy and reminded him gently, almost but not quite warningly, that "It is better to be safe than sorry."

"I guess so," the Baltic agreed hesitantly as the bigger Nation beamed down at him.

"There, you see? It is not so hard after all."

"If Estonia thought it was a good idea…" _…At least I won't be alone in this._

"And Lithuania will come around as well," Russia added, ruffling Latvia's hair and kindly ignoring the resulting bout of panic. "When he is not quite so…distracted." He reached over to the nearby coffee table and picked up the pen that lay on top of a small stack of papers, holding it out to the anxious country still sitting on the sofa.

Latvia took it dutifully, leaning over the table. He studied the paper in front of him, not really reading, and then reached out, the pen resting only a few centimeters above the paper. He looked up at Russia, who nodded encouragingly. Latvia signed the document, wondering what else he _could_ do in such a situation where both safe and _not_ sorry were beyond his reach.

-o-

_October 5, 1939  
__Helsinki, Finland_

Sorry to keep bringing this up, but remember how we discussed negotiating with Russia? How it's really hard and there aren't a lot of people who are any good at it? How Latvia isn't one of those people, and Estonia isn't either? Well, now we're going to talk about Finland. He _is_ one of the people who can hold their own in a conference room with the big guy. Surprise, surprise. Let's spice things up a little.

Finland and Russia sat across from each other, a desk in between them. Finland was tapping his pen almost mechanically against the mahogany table, staring down at the document in front of him. He didn't like it, not one bit, and he hadn't even finished reading the dumb thing yet. Russia kept interrupting him with helpful hints about what he ought to do and how wonderful the Soviet's plan was. Finland was trying _very_ hard to be polite and diplomatic and to keep himself from throwing his pen at Russia in annoyance. It was going surprisingly well so far—that is, the pen was staying in Finland's hand where it belonged. The negotiations, on the other hand? Not so much.

"I don't _know_ about this…" the blond slowly said aloud, studying the document.

Russia smiled sweetly at Finland. That was his usual tactic, if you haven't noticed, and not just for negotiations either. "It would be very good for both of us, _da_?"

"Ehh…" Finland mumbled. He tried to sound noncommittal but his eyebrows foiled that plan as the flickered disbelievingly upwards despite his attempts. He didn't really like Russia; the guy was creepy and drank too much and was sort of nuttier than a fruitcake. Also, Russia had never been a very nice guy to work for, and when a pat on the shoulder was enough to make one of your subordinates cry—even if it _was_ Latvia—well, Finland had a problem with that. Besides, he thought that the youngest Baltic was sweet a sweet little country, and one in need of a hug, at that.

The Nordic Nation studied Russia's taciturn expression. He wondered if that look could be _weaponized_, beyond just smiling at the guy you were shooting at to give him a case of the heebie-jeebies. If you could project the image, maybe…?

"I think I like our borders where they are," Finland told Russia, patting absently at his bottom lip with the pen. "And I like my Hanko Peninsula, too."

What Russia had asked for didn't set well with Finland, or with his government. The Soviet Union was demanding, in that strange hostilely polite tone Russia liked so much, that they moved the border on the Karelian Isthmus, which lay between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. That would also force Finland to get rid of any defenses that he had there already. The Soviets wanted the Hanko Peninsula at the very southernmost tip of the mainland of Finland's country to be leased for years, plus permission to build a naval base. Finland had entirely different ideas about where Russia should shove his naval base. Russia wanted another peninsula and some islands, and Finland just wasn't really cool with that. Granted, Finland's neighbor had offered a good deal of territory in return but…it was the principle of the thing. Could you really support such a jerkface like that? If you wanted to punt a guy back across the Gulf of Finland, it just wasn't right to give him what he wanted without at _least_ putting up a fuss.

On the other hand, of course, Russia was an awful big country run by a kind of crazy man, and Finland had some reservations about provoking kind of crazy men to war, especially those who ran awful big countries. Was it really provoking, thought? Russia had started it, after all; these floundering negotiations had been his asinine idea. Either way, Finland didn't want to start a fight, especially not in messed up times like these. _Poor Poland…_ Finland hadn't exactly been close to the recently-conquered country, but that by no means prevented him from feeling sympathy for him. That was another of the reasons he wanted so dearly to boot Russia out of his office. Poland had always been a fighter when the chips were down, but under the conditions of the invasion—invasion_s_—he hadn't really stood much of a chance.

Finland sighed, then smiled awkwardly back at Russia. He looked down at the document, pretending to be reading, and casually said, "So you and Germany aren't getting along anymore?"

"I am simply being cautious," Russia said, his tone subtly advising the Scandinavian country to do the same.

"Yeah," Finland laughed, a bit nervously, tapping his pen again on the paper. "You can never be _too_ careful, right?"

"It is good that you understand," the coocoo for Coco Puffs country told Finland. "Perhaps now you can see-,"

"I don't know if my government would go for this, though," the blond interrupted innocently, making Russia's poker face twitch dangerously. "It's such a big change."

"For the good of everyone," Russia reminded him.

Finland tapped the pen a little faster. "And I think everyone could use some good, too. _But_," he added quickly, cutting his increasingly frustrated visitor off again. "Maybe there are better ways to go about protecting our people than to make a drastic exchange _in case_ of war between you and your _friend_." The clicking of the pen against paper became almost constant, picking up the pace as Finland's own heart rate did the same. _Oh, yeah, he's definitely going to get you for this, Finny_. He smirked in spite of himself. _He can try, anyway_. "If you don't mind, I need time to consult my government," Finland spoke up, once again directing his comment at Russia instead of the air around them, something he doubted that Russia was sued to. "This is a big decision, after all," he added with a small peal of twittery laughter.

Russia stood up quickly and patted Finland on the shoulder. Hard. "I'm sure you will come to the right decision."

_I already have_, Finland said to himself as he showed Russia to the door, seeing his neighbor off with lots of silly, unbelievable remarks about the Soviet Union's proposition, conditions in Europe, and the weather. All lies, naturally. The truth was, and everyone knew it, that Russia was only in it for Russia. Things were going to get far worse on the Continent before they ever got any better. It was far too cold to be pleasant. Diplomacy in a nutshell, Finland sighed, shutting the door behind him.

_Oh, dear_.

He headed upstairs to his bedroom, thinking that perhaps there had been better ways to handle the situation than actively trying to make Russia angry. Nothing more fun, of course, but many more reasonable, safer solutions. Still, Russia infuriated Finland, and it was high time that the massive country got a taste of his own medicine. The Baltics may have caved in to Russia's demands, and Finland couldn't bring himself to blame them, poor things, but that didn't mean that he had to do the same. Opening the door to his bedroom, Finland crossed to the window and watched Russia's car depart.

Finland had done a very dangerous thing that day. Probably a stupid one, too. It was very likely that there would be war at his doorstep within the month. He couldn't quite force himself to regret his choice, though. Sniper rifles had to be good for something, didn't they?

Finland hummed cheerily to himself, closed the curtains, and answered his own question.

* * *

**Authors' Note:**Historical Stuff:

- Russia and Estonia signed a mutual assistance treaty on September 28, 1939. Estonia really didn't _want_ to sign it, but he also really didn't want to make Russia mad, since Russia was accusing him of taking sides in the war. The thing about the submarine refers to a Polish submarine that had to stop in an Estonian port in order to get its captain, who was suffering from an unknown illness, to a hospital. According to the Hague Convention, a neutral country couldn't let any vessel intending to participate in the war leave its jurisdiction, but the submarine crew escaped anyway. Russia then proceeded to accuse Estonia of deliberately letting the submarine slip away, which let him threaten to invade if Estonia didn't sign the treaty.

- And then Russia tried to get Lithuania to sign a similar treaty, promising to give him Vilnius back if he signed. Lithuania was a bit hesitant about signing the treaty and went back home to talk to his boss about it.

- Oh, right. I should explain the whole Vilnius issue, shouldn't I? Well, basically, Poland and Lithuania spent a while fighting over the Vilnius region after WW1. Poland claimed that he had the right to it because the majority of the inhabitants were Polish. Lithuania claimed that they were Polonized Lithuanians, and that Vilnius was historically his capital, so he should have it. They continued arguing and got nowhere. Poland ended up seizing the city, but Lithuania continued to claim it as his capital city, although he did have to use Kaunas as his "temporary capital" until he could get Vilnius back. The two of them refused to speak to each other until 1938, when Poland gave Lithuania an ultimatum demanding that they reestablish diplomatic relations. Lithuania accepted the ultimatum, but at this point in the story, he still refuses to speak to Poland unless he absolutely _has_ to. Of course, now that Russia has Vilnius, he's got one heck of a bargaining chip on his side. Lithuania won't sign Russia's treaty just yet, though, and is trying to find ways to get Vilnius back without giving Russia so much control.

- Meanwhile, on October 5, Latvia signed a similar treaty with Russia. Russia doesn't have any special leverage here, but the implied threat of invasion is enough...

- And now we cut to Finland, who also doesn't want to sign a treaty with Russia. Finland doesn't quite _want_ war, but he's also not as intimidated by the threat of it. He started gradual mobilization of his armed forces, disguised as "additional refresher training." Finland did offer to give Russia some territory, but it was a lot less than Russia wanted. And thus, the Winter War happened.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: You know, writing the historical note about the Vilnius dispute was weird, considering my pen name. If Russia is using Vilnius as a bargaining chip, does that mean I'm stuck at Russia's house right now? Lithuania, get me out of here! (Okay, maybe I'm having a bit too much fun with my pen name, but I can't think of anything else to say, so...yeah. Here I am at Russia's house, being used as a bargaining chip. Joy to the world.)

Warsaw's Note: One of the nice things about Hetalia is that it makes history class so much more interesting. You guys, we did the Cold War last week, and I couldn't keep a straight face to save my soul. I'm sorry if it reads like one great, long period of sexual tension. I'm a very open-minded shipper, after all, and you can only say that a war "wasn't hot" so many times before it begins to sound like you're in denial.

**If you review, we will love you with all of our hearts! Also, it might motivate stupid, lazy Warsaw to get off her butt and write the next scene instead of watching _Supernatural_ all day. (This is Warsaw saying this, sadly.)**

**Oh, also: Lucia Scarlatti, we probably won't be including Czech and Slovakia in this story because we don't exactly have enough canon to go on, and the thought of making up our own characters in somebody else's verse makes us feel...not good. Sorry...**


	6. Take Your Chances

_Disclaimer: The status remains quo. Hetalia is not ours._

_Enjoy!_

**Chapter Six: Take Your Chances**

_October 8, 1939  
__Changsha, China_

_Should have stayed in the hospital when I had the chance_.

Leaving had seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually, it hadn't even seemed like a good idea, it had just seemed natural. _Of course_ China would leave the hospital the second he was able to. There had never been any question about that. At least not until China got to the battlefield and things got difficult. That was when he'd looked back and realized that there _had_ been a question; he just hadn't thought very hard about it. He'd decided to leave the hospital, and that was the end of it. Considering staying had never crossed his mind because he was so sure that he could handle it.

Now that China had gotten to the battlefield, however, things were a little different. Now he was beginning to realize that maybe the entourage of concerned medical staff had a _point_ when they'd tried to get him to stay. He'd brushed them off like it was nothing at the time, but now that he was experiencing a battle while not _remotely_ healed from a mustard gas attack and a bullet wound, the thought crossed China's mind that he probably should have stayed. Let the army handle this battle so that he'd be completely healed and ready to fight by the time the next battle started.

But it was too late to turn back now. Everything hurt, everything felt absolutely _horrible_, like he'd run a marathon through a forest of poison ivy and thorny plants, all while sick with the flu. But he couldn't do anything about that now. He couldn't turn around and go back to the hospital, not in the middle of the battle. He'd have to stay and fight. He'd win or, more likely, he'd lose, but no matter what happened, he would finish this. Now that he was here, he had to.

Of course, this was all fine and good on paper. Nice and dramatic. It's easy to read statements like "no matter what happened, he would finish this." It's hard to live up to them when it starts to hurt.

And it did hurt. Every cell in China's body was screaming for him to stop, to rest, to find some way, some excuse to get _out_ of here. He was tired, his sides hurt from coughing, his lungs wouldn't fill up enough no matter how hard he tried. Waves of nausea hit him with every few steps, and every fiber of his being wanted to fall to the ground and vomit to get it over with. And maybe stay down, while he was there, maybe give himself some time to rest. A minute, just one little minute. Maybe two. And with every second, China was closer and closer to giving in to the temptation. All he wanted to do was _rest_, was make the pain and the nausea stop, even just for a minute, even if it meant capture or death.

China wasn't entirely conscious of his actions; instead, he performed every action, every gunshot, every step, all mechanically, all without thinking. He wasn't entirely aware of everything he was doing, he only knew that he was doing it and would continue to do it until he eventually collapsed, either from exhaustion, or in a coughing fit, or possibly when the nausea slamming into him like a tidal wave finally ended in a puddle of vomit.

He must have been doing well, though, because for the briefest instant, something like worry crossed Japan's face. It was quickly pushed aside and hidden behind an emotionless mask, but it was there. China had seen it; he _knew_ he'd seen it. For a moment there, Japan had been concerned that he might lose this.

That realization was all that China needed to bring on _another_ realization: Japan actually _might_ lose this. For the first time since the battle had begun and things had started to get really painful, China realized that it wasn't a case of just fighting until he fell over, dead or unconscious or vomiting or just exhausted. He might actually win this, _despite_ the pain, _despite_ the mustard gas and bullet wound. And as he realized that, the mustard gas and bullet wound suddenly seemed less important. No longer were they the conditions keeping China from winning this battle. Instead, they were the conditions that China was overcoming—not the conditions that he would have to overcome, but that he _was overcoming_, in the present tense—to win this battle.

China renewed the attack with an intensity he hadn't even dreamed of managing just a few seconds ago. He could win this. The mustard gas and bullet wound, sure those were problematic, but they weren't the mountainous obstacles he'd seen them as only a minute ago. They weren't even as important as he'd thought they were a minute ago. In fact, ever since he'd started to consider that he wasn't just stalling, trying to see how long he could hold out before he lost, they had ceased to be important at all. Either the pain had stopped completely, or China had just stopped noticing it, but either way, the result was the same: he had a chance to win this. He was _going_ to win this.

He wasn't sure how much longer the fighting continued. It could have been five minutes, it could have been thirty minutes, or it could have been several hours. It didn't matter. What mattered was winning, and China was doing just that.

He didn't know how much time had passed between his realization that he could win and the moment where he did win. In fact, he didn't even realize what had happened until he saw Japan fall to the ground, dead or at least something close to it. If he was dead, it was just a battlefield wound that had killed him, so he'd probably wake up soon, but that was good enough for China. Japan might wake up soon, but the battle was over _now_.

China celebrated his great victory with a shout of triumph. Then he fell to his knees as his stomach finally decided that enough was enough and the vomiting began, and China realized just how much his stomach hurt. And his sides, and his ribs, and his lungs, and everywhere else, and on top of all that, he was starting to feel like he might pass out.

It was definitely time to go back to the hospital, preferably _before_ he made the injuries any worse than he already had.

-o-

_October 9, 1939  
__Berlin, Germany_

Poland had a headache.

Not just any headache, though. He'd been shot in the head, after all, so as you can imagine, the pain was much more severe than anything that erred on the side of normal. At the moment, he was finding that he couldn't quite manage to get his eyes open, having just been jolted from a state of simple blissful nothingness. It would be one of _those_ days, then. Poland cracked his lips apart, vaguely aware of dried blood flaking into his mouth and let out a small moan, the most he could do for himself at the moment. It wasn't as helpful as he'd hoped.

_What…what happened?_ Poland opened his eyes, only enough to let a very small amount of light in. Well, not quite light, exactly—it was more like "light_er_." "Less-darkness," perhaps? Wherever Poland was didn't seem to be very well-lit. Poland shut his eyes, giving up on the visual method of information retrieval for the time being, and opted to twitch his fingers just a tad, assessing the material on which he was lying. Smooth and soft. Some sort of a…cloth? Right. Where the-?

_Oh, yeah. I lost._ The ghost of a whimper escaped from Poland's already grim frown and he swallowed. He was absolutely not going to cry. He was going to…well, to be perfectly honest, Poland had no idea what he was going to do. What options did he even _have_? He was too weak to fight, to beaten up to bolt. Besides, he was vastly outnumbered; a conquered country, no matter how spirited, would never stand a chance.

Poland thought about that for a moment. Reconsidered. The war was still on, _sort of_, wasn't it? If England and France could stop quarreling long enough to remember to contribute anything of real consequence, it was. That was bound to drag Germany and Prussia out of the house. That left Austria, who would likely stick around and keep an eye on Poland, although that wasn't much of an issue. Poland had confidence that he would be able to beat the pushy noble in a fight, once his body was back to being functional again. Unfortunately, the healing would be slow-going after a defeat like this. Still though, if necessary, there were always more subtle options, like poisoning Austria's tea or pushing him down the stairs. Or something… That still left one glaring problem, however: running away was always something of a gamble because if you were caught, you were beyond screwed.

Food for thought, then. Either way, Poland knew that he wasn't going anywhere for a while. In the meantime, however, he decided once again to attempt the gargantuan feat of opening his eyes, despite the fact that light plus headache equaled a truly spectacular _owie_. Better to have some idea of his surroundings, the Nation reasoned. The sooner the better. Just in case.

Poland's eyes flickered painfully open to reveal an ordinary enough room. _His_ room, Poland sulked silently, for the time being. He found that he had been right on two earlier counts: he was at Germany's house and what little light there was had instantly begun to make his already aching head cry "foul!" Squinting, Poland evaluated his new prison. The walls were boring, he noticed immediately. A blank sort of creamy, camel-back beige with the offending light creeping in through the gaps in the curtains and spraying a tinted mosaic on the far wall. Poland's head swam dizzily and he shut his eyes, deciding that perhaps he ought to try this in shifts, at least if he wanted to get anywhere with this "looking" thing. He squeezed his eyes shut until the sensation of having cannonballs fired into his skull subsided, leaving behind the familiar throbbing that, while horrible, was technically bearable, if only because there was nothing Poland could do about it. When he could stand to blink his eyes open once again, Poland returned to his frustrated analysis of the room.

A closet loomed to his left, along with a bedside table. Pressed up against the wall was a large pink suitcase. Poland swore mentally. Germany must have packed for him, meaning that all of the _cute_ things had obviously been left behind. Poland grimaced; now he _really_ needed to get out of here. He wondered anxiously if Germany had bothered to bring along anything beyond clothes and other basics. Shoot, there was totally some stuff he was going to miss if that was the case. Such was the problem with going down fighting: sure, you kept your dignity and left a pretty cool impression, but you were bound to end up unconscious, and then you had to rely on your stick-in-the-mud captor with no taste to do your packing for you.

Poland shut his eyes again, sinking back into the already too familiar fluff of his pillow.

_Great_. This was going to be a long imprisonment, then, no matter how quickly he made his escape. That said, the last thing he wanted was to have to rely on England and France to get him out of this. It wasn't that they weren't...competent or anything. Well, England had always put up a good fight, and the way Poland saw it, Germany was bound to head for Paris at some point, and that was when France was certain to either get dangerous or surrender, but fifty-fifty was better than nothing. Still, though, guarantees or not, Poland didn't have to patience to sit around and wait to be rescued like some sort of a fairy tale princess. He had more important things to do that staring out the window of his tower and spending his days sweeping the castle. Like resistance for example.

_Ugh_. Poland sacrificed his position, which qualified for a reasonable degree of comfort in comparison to what he was about to do, and opened his eyes again. _There. That wasn't too totally horrible, was it_? he thought supportively. Poland figured that he ought to be encouraging to himself, given that nobody else was stepping up to play the role. He stared up at the ceiling, wondering how long he was going to be stuck here. _A while_. Were his people going to be okay? _Very_ _doubtful_. Was _he _going to be okay? _…Nigh impossible._

The door opened with a slight creak. Poland shut his eyes, hoping that he could gain some new insight into the situation if he faked being out cold a little longer, and also fearing that the light from the hallway might just be enough to kill him for good.

"Nice try. If you were going to pretend to be unconscious, you shouldn't have waited so long."

"Ugh, why is it _you_?" Poland grumbled irritably back at Austria, opening his eyes and turning his head—_ow_—just enough to glare murderously at the brunette, who could be called nothing short of unfazed.

"Don't look at me like that; I'm not the one who shot you," he reminded the bedridden Nation patronizingly. Poland turned shut his eyes again, forcing his neck back into its previous, more comfortable position.

"Go away, Austria," the blond huffed wearily. "I'm _so_ not in the mood for this right now."

"You lost, Poland, so suck it up." Austria said, without much sympathy. Afterwards, however, he crossed to the bed and leaned over the injured country. "How are you feeling?"

Poland gave a small snort of indignation. "Did Germany, like, run me over with his car after he shot me?" He cracked his eyes open and contentiously snapped, "How do you _think_ I feel?"

"Don't get snippy," Austria warned irritably, although Poland wasn't nervous for a second. "I apologize for the _grievous_ offence of being concerned about your well-being. I assure you, it won't happen again."

"Wanna know where you can shove that concern?" the battered personification's mildly cross frown twisted into a furious scowl. "Don't _invade_ my country and then _worry _about how I'm doing. Don't _massacre_ _my_ _people_ and then ask me how I _feel_! God, Austria, don't…" the anger subsided, trailing off into exhaustion, pain, and misery, and Poland settled back once more into his bed, turning his head. "Go away, Austria," he said again, much softer than before. "I want to be alone right now, okay?"

"I know," the bespectacled Nation patted Poland gently on the hand. "Unfortunately, I need to change your bandages, so you're just going to have to deal with me for a little while."

"Just don't say anything too prissy then," Poland reluctantly yielded to the older Nation's admittedly helpful medical assistance. "I got shot in the head, remember?"

"Yes, you bled all over the seat."

"Ew."

"Of Germany's new car."

Poland cracked an eye open, having become accustomed enough to the small amount of light to manage that much. "There's something positive." Austria smiled very slightly and said nothing. Poland glanced upwards, following his temporary caretaker's hands to the bandages being unwrapped from his forehead. He wordlessly watched as the brunette studied the injury, muttering something under his breath. Poland closed his eyes again, determined to relax as much as he could while he could still demand to be taken care of. It was Germany's own fault that he was incapacitated and the blond had every intention of making him regret the actions that had led to it. He winced suddenly. "_Ow_. Careful where you're jabbing."

Austria _tsked_ in response, offering no apology, and the silence resumed.

"Did Germany pack my stuff? 'Cause I bet he didn't even_ look_ at what he, like, shoved in my suitcase," Poland complained eventually.

Austria sighed. "I thought you had a headache, Poland."

"Please. I've been unconscious for, like…a week? Whatever. I have a lot of talking to make up for."

"Are you looking to get pistol whipped again?" Austria growled, obviously perturbed by the perspective of a week's worth of _likes_ and _omigods_.

Poland was once again not impressed. "You don't like guns."

"I'm growing fonder of them by the second."

The blond emitted a small sound in response, having grown bored of the topic and moved on to another one. "How's Warsaw?"

"She's seen better days," Austria admitted, seeming to mind this path of discussion less. There was a brief pause as Poland digested that tidbit of information, taking in all that it could mean. "Poland, about…"

"Hmm?" Blinking his green eyes open once again, Poland stared up at Austria, studying his expression. "What's up?"

"Nothing." Austria's refusal to meet his gaze said pages. Poland tapped his anxiously fingers on the sheets and wondered what the stoic man was finding so difficult to explain, especially given that he hardly had a friendly relationship to maintain. As Poland considered this, Austria drew back the covers and began to unbutton the cloth of the Nation's pajama shirt. Poland studied the brightly polka dotted white cotton and noted aloud, "You, like, changed my clothes?"

"Your uniform was filthy, tattered, and interfering with the bandages," Austria sniffed. "You're lucky enough none of your injuries have become infected as it is."

"Blah, blah..." Poland disinterestedly watched one of the three victors of his desperate defensive war, returning to thoughts of resistance. It would be difficult to help his government from the confines of his new Berlin bedroom, not to mention more dangerous, especially if he was caught. Still, at least for the time being, there wasn't much else that he could do, and he absolutely had to do something.

Resistance? Wait…

Crap.

"Austria!" Poland blurted suddenly. The brunette looked up, startled, his hands stalled a few inches above the pained part of Poland's arm. "What…what happened to my uniform?"

"Ah." Looking somewhat guilty, Austria confessed, "Germany insisted that we burn it. For…political reasons?"

The awkward choice of wording didn't seem to register with the increasingly frantic country. "You…I mean, there wasn't…?" Poland stuttered urgently, wondering how he was going to ask his question without warning Austria to the secret importance of the inquiry.

The other Nation studied him in expectant confusion for a moment before recognition lit up his face. "I see. That infantry cap you had stowed in your coat pocket?" Poland paled. "If you don't mind my asking, where did you get it?"

"Wizna," Poland answered breathlessly. No point in lying now, after all.

"A souvenir of a battle lost," Austria nodded slightly. "I expected as much. You've always preferred the cavalry, so I didn't think it was yours..." The blond stared at him uneasily. Austria returned his attention to Poland's arm, gently applying the bandage to the cleaned cut. "I have it." Poland said nothing still. "Keep it somewhere Germany won't see it, understand?" he ordered. "He's been a bit…touchy about that sort of thing."

"Thanks," Poland croaked out, relieved beyond words for several reasons. He settled back into the bed, suddenly finding himself very tired once again, allowing his unwitting savior to continue tending to his wounds. "You know, out of everybody here, I think you just might suck the least."

"Wonderful," Austria said drily, unmoved by the show of gratitude but by no means displeased by it either. "Please tell me you're going back to sleep."

"I might try," Poland sighed. "But everything kind of _hurts_."

Austria shrugged, rolling the material back into place he'd created and moving on to the evaluate Poland's broken wrist. "You _did_ get shot in the head, as you've been so helpful as to remind me," He paused, then sighed. "Wait," Poland listened to the sound of Austria's boots tapping against the wood floor, crossing to the far wall. A zipper buzzed down its track, something soft was rustled gently, and the footsteps picked up once again. "Here."

"What?" the blond asked lazily.

"Open your eyes, for goodness' sake, Poland."

Frowning slightly, the tattered Nation did as he was told, peeking into the light once more. His eyes fell on the plush unicorn in Austria's hands and his face lit up in delight. "Ooh, Pierogi!"

Austria yanked the toy back. "_What_ did you name this poor thing?" he demanded, flabbergasted.

"Pierogi."

"That's a food."

"Thanks, I would know."

"That's plural."

"Yeah. Like Sprinkles or Sparkles, but, like, yummier," He pulled his hand from beneath the blanket, wincing all the way, and wiggled it expectantly. "Gimmie."

Austria rolled his eyes, shook his head, and handed over the strangely named stuffed toy. "Do you name all of your dolls after food, or is…Pierogi the exception rather than the rule? Would I have found Kiełbasa the Rabbit if I had kept looking?"

Poland snorted, ignoring the question as he was too busy cuddling his soft and squishy reminder of home. "Kiełbasa is a puppy."

Austria blinked at him. "Was that a joke?"

"You'll never know," Poland sing-songed, pulling the toy close and closing his eyes, snuggling into his blankets. "Thanks, Austria."

"I had no part in that. If you'd someone to thank, I suggest Prussia. Only he would think to bring along a stuffed unicorn."

Poland stuck out his tongue. "I'm not _that_ grateful." He yawned against his greatest efforts and Austria pulled the covers up around the boy's chest in spite of himself.

"Perhaps you'll feel better when you wake up."

Awake enough to snort back that, "You'll be the first to know," Poland listened quietly as Austria walked to far wall and out into the hall, gently closing the door behind him. The tired Nation opened his eyes one last time, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling and thinking to himself that he would not feel better until he was back home, wars and capitulations behind him before drifting off to sleep, Pierogi the Unicorn tucked lovingly into his embrace.

-o-

_October 10, 1939  
__Moscow, Russia_

Back again.

Or rather, back a third time. This was the third meeting on the subject of the mutual assistance pact that Russia was still determined to make Lithuania sign. This time, Lithuania was...well he _was_ a little hopeful. Was. Past tense.

The minute he'd gotten home after his first meeting with Russia, he'd gone straight to his boss to discuss the treaty. They had worked out a couple of ideas of how to avoid giving Russia so much control: doubling the army, maybe building fortifications on Lithuania's border with Germany similar to France's Maginot Line…

Then, after talking to his boss, Lithuania had called up Germany to discuss the secret protocols and the territory that Russia had wanted him to give up. Lithuania had been a bit nervous, but Germany had been pretty nice, much to Lithuania's surprise. The Baltic Nation had been expecting Germany to have become something like Russia. After all, Germany _had_ just beaten Poland to a pulp. But no, Germany appeared to be just as sane as ever. He had confirmed what Russia had said about the secret protocols, but when Lithuania had brought up the territory that Russia had wanted him to hand over to Germany, all assertive and business-like, Germany had assured him that the transfer of territory wasn't an urgent matter, and that they could discuss it at another time, when Lithuania wasn't busy trying to negotiate a major treaty. Germany had even seemed surprisingly sympathetic about Lithuania's problems with Russia, confiding that he'd always found dealing with the arctic Nation to be...difficult, at best.

Huh.

Once that problem was settled, Lithuania had gone back to talk to Russia a second time. Russia didn't seem to care all that much about Lithuania's alternatives to the treaty, but he did agree to reduce the number of Russian troops to be stationed in Lithuania's country to twenty thousand. After all, as Russia had pointed out, twenty thousand was about the same size as Lithuania's army, so at least Lithuania wouldn't feel outnumbered.

The way he'd said this strongly implied that Lithuania was screwed regardless, but hey, at least this way he wouldn't _feel_ screwed until Russia inevitably took over. It was also delivered in a rather patronizing tone that Lithuania found quite annoying, but considering the aforementioned differences in the sizes of their armies, Lithuania didn't exactly think that ticking Russia off would be good for either him or his country, so he kept his mouth shut.

Russia had wanted to sign the treaty right then and there, on the nineteenth anniversary of Lithuania's loss of Vilnius. Poetic, _da_?

Lithuania had said no and went to talk with his boss again. Poetic or not, he wasn't giving in that easily.

So Lithuania had talked to his boss yet again. His boss had said that it wasn't worth getting Vilnius back at that price, and wondered if they could break off negotiations without ticking off Russia. Lithuania had agreed about Vilnius, but he refused to let himself admit it, even in his mind, because it was _his_ capital, and if Poland had no right to the place, Russia had even less right to it.

But, as Lithuania's boss had pointed out to him, getting back Vilnius wouldn't mean much if Lithuania ended up stuck at Russia's house again. And Lithuania couldn't argue with this. (Not for lack of trying.) But alas, his boss was right, and Lithuania knew it, so eventually, he agreed.

Unfortunately, breaking off negotiations wasn't an option, especially now that Russia had forces in Latvia's country which he could use on Lithuania if necessary, not to mention forces in Vilnius. (Poetic, _da_?)

So, not wanting to think too hard about specifics on what had happened in Russia's meetings with Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania had distracted himself by agreeing with his boss, after a brief discussion, that breaking off negotiations would probably not end well, and that the best course of action would be to demand as much territory as possible. The Soviet forces would end up in the country anyway, that much was certain. All Lithuania could do was get as much out of the deal as he could.

Unfortunately, Russia had other plans.

Lithuania was back in Russia's office, again, but this time around was a bit different because Russia was suddenly quite determined not to change the treaty. No extra territorial demands for Lithuania; either sign the treaty as is, or end up in a less than happy position involving invasions and soldiers and ending up like Poland.

Lithuania was sitting across the desk from Russia, the map of the borders that would be defined by their treaty spread out on the desk between them. Lithuania wasn't particularly thrilled with this turn of events, but he kept reminding himself that it was at least better than the alternative of being taken over by Russia.

Russia was smiling, of course, the same way he had been smiling since the meeting began, and the same way he would presumably be smiling for the rest of the meeting and quite possibly the rest of eternity. And, as per tradition, Lithuania found this a bit creepy, for two reasons. One, a smile is not supposed to look threatening, and yet Russia's smile did. Two, people's expressions are supposed to _change_ sometimes.

Lithuania looked over the treaty that Russia had handed him. It was pretty much the same as they'd talked about last time. Lithuania would get Vilnius back. Lithuania and Russia would be obligated to help the other if something happened, although Lithuania wasn't particularly reassured by this promise since Russia was highly likely to _be_ the something that happened. Lithuania would get some military equipment from Russia. Russia would get to station his troops in Lithuania's country. In case of an attack, they would have to coordinate actions (read as: Russia would get to call all the shots and Lithuania would have to do what he said). Neither of them could participate in alliances against the other party. (No mention of Russia and Germany's agreement to conquer Europe, although if Lithuania wanted to team up with someone other than Russia, he sure wouldn't be allowed to do it.) Sovereignty would not be affected by the treaty. (Ha! Just you wait.) And there was a nice little clause specifying that Russia was not allowed to station more than twenty thousand troops in Lithuania's country. Because those twenty thousand troops certainly wouldn't be more than capable of causing plenty of problems for Lithuania even before the rest of the invasion got there.

Yes, Lithuania was feeling rather pessimistic that day. Can you really blame him?

"Russia, I talked to my boss the other day. He and I agree that the territorial gains in this treaty the way it is now are nowhere near enough to compensate for-"

Russia cut him off before he could even finish, which would be bad diplomatic form had both parties not known perfectly well that Russia was the one in power here, and that therefore Lithuania had better shut up and just be glad he wasn't getting invaded. Well, technically it still wasn't particularly diplomatic, but the point here was that Russia was in power so he didn't have to worry about being diplomatic if he didn't feel like it. Diplomacy was only strictly necessary for Nations who _couldn't_ crush the Nation sitting across the table like a bug.

"This is the treaty, Lithuania. Either you sign it or you do not."

Lithuania swallowed hard. "But I don't-"

He fell silent immediately as Russia stood up and walked around the desk to stand next to Lithuania's chair. Lithuania leaned a little away from him, suddenly about twenty times more nervous than he had been up until now, which was really saying something.

Russia took the treaty out of Lithuania's hands and flipped to the page dedicated to the signatures of the Nations involved. There would be a copy that the human diplomats would sign, which would look identical to this one, except for the names at the bottom, and it was the human diplomat version that would be the historically significant one, but the Nations still had to have their own version for their own records. Russia put the treaty down on the desk in front of Lithuania, and handed the smaller Nation a pen. The message was clear: sign the treaty now, with no further negotiations, or lose your chance to sign altogether and take your chances in the invasion.

For an instant, Lithuania wondered if he just might be able to stand up to Russia, refuse to sign the treaty, and just fight off the invasion somehow. Then reality kicked in. Russia's army was absolutely massive, especially compared to Lithuania's. If it came to a fight, Russia would win, very quickly, and Lithuania knew that. Heck, Russia might just decide to start the war right here and now if Lithuania refused to sign, and Lithuania was perfectly well aware that _that_ would not end well.

He took the pen with shaking hands and signed the treaty.

(The whole time, Russia kept smiling. It was really, really creepy. This might also have factored into Lithuania's decision to sign the treaty. Just a little.)

The instant Lithuania finished signing, Russia took the pen from him and set it on the desk, leaving the treaty where it was. "I'm very happy you made the correct decision," he said. His smile grew and he _beamed_ at Lithuania, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair, not liking getting this much attention from Russia.

"I think," Russia began, and Lithuania felt himself suddenly feeling that the twenty thousand troops soon to be stationed in his country were the least of his worries, "that this calls for a celebration!"

Vodka.

Lithuania was right. The Soviet troops were _definitely_ the least of his worries.

On the bright side, at least he had Vilnius back. Having his capital back, his _real_ capital, _officially_ back, made him feel right for the first time in nearly twenty years. As soon as he could get away from Russia's celebration, he'd head home, stop by and tell his boss what happened, and then start moving his things back to his house in Vilnius. Finally, he could get home. Not that he had anything against the house in Kaunas that he'd temporarily moved into, or anything against Kaunas in general. He loved Kaunas. But it wasn't home. Home was his house in Vilnius, the neighbors he'd gotten to know over the years, the familiar streets, the river near his house. And he'd be home soon, for the first time in years.

That is, if he managed to avoid alcohol poisoning.

-o-

_October 19, 1939  
__Berlin, Germany_

As per tradition, Austria was making breakfast. It wasn't because nobody else in the house was capable of cooking. It was because…well, there was someone who was both willing to cook and capable of doing a pretty darn good job. Why would anyone want to screw up this arrangement?

So as per tradition, Austria was making breakfast, and as per tradition, Prussia was doing his best to hinder the process. Not because he didn't want Austria to make breakfast, but because he was Prussia and hindering others is what Prussias do best.

On this particular morning, Prussia was feeling impatient. So, in his mind, the obvious solution was to just steal food from the stove while Austria wasn't looking. He stole a fork from the drawer and waited for Austria to look away. He didn't have to wait long; Gilbird was in the kitchen too, after all, and Gilbird was quite distracting when he wanted to be.

Unfortunately for Prussia, though, while Gilbird may have been distracting, Austria was _used_ to the distraction. After all, the distraction landed on his head at annoying moments pretty much every day. So when Prussia tried to take advantage of the distraction, Austria whapped him sharply on the knuckles with the spoon he was holding, swatting at Gilbird with his other hand, because really, who wants to cook with a bird on their head?

"Ow!" Prussia complained, clutching his horribly wounded hand protectively to his chest. "Jerk."

"Wait until it's done," Austria said without bothering to look at the other Nation.

"You hit me with a spoon!"

"Yes. And...?"

"Don't hit people with spoons!"

"Don't try to steal food off the stove."

It was at this point that Germany got sick of watching the two of them argue. He sighed. "Cut it out, you two. Prussia, if you've got time to steal food off the stove, you've got time to go upstairs and tell Poland and Hungary to come down here."

"Nooo," Prussia said in a voice that, in a less awesome Nation, would have been labeled a whine. "Poland'll just throw a pillow at my head and go back to sleep anyway."

Germany rolled his eyes. "Then drag him out of bed."

"He'll get back in the second I let go."

Germany had to admit, it was true. For someone who was supposed to be older than him, the blond displayed a remarkable similarity to a child wanting to skip school in the mornings. "Fine, he can miss breakfast then. Tell Hungary to come downstairs, and just bang on Poland's door or something to wake him up."

"Okay, fine," Prussia said. He was looking at Germany, but the hand holding the fork was sneaking back toward the stove.

"_Now_, Prussia. Before you get your hand smacked again."

"Before what?" Prussia asked, turning to look at the stove and jerking his hand away a moment too late to avoid getting smacked. "Ow! Cut that out!"

Austria didn't respond, just made shooing gestures at him. Prussia glared at him over his shoulder as he left the kitchen, nursing his wounded hand once more.

"You'd think he'd have learned the first time," Austria commented to Germany.

Germany shrugged. "It's Prussia. If anything, hitting him the first time only encouraged him to do it again to try and beat you."

"True."

Upstairs, there was the sound of Prussia pounding on a door and yelling "wake up, loser!"

"Oh, I can just tell that today's going to be pleasant," Austria remarked sarcastically.

"Well, if you've got any ideas on how to keep Poland on the other end of the house for the majority of the morning, I'd greatly appreciate them. We need to start working on the next invasion plans, and I'd prefer that we do it without Poland overhearing."

"We can't just lock him in his room?"

"I'd prefer that he be able to do his chores while not overhearing us," Germany said. "Not to mention the fact that if we lock him in his room, it's going to end up causing problems for us later on."

Upstairs, there was a crash from Hungary's room. Germany and Austria looked at each other, confused. Prussia reentered the kitchen, looking back over his shoulder toward the stairs for an explanation and seeing nothing of the sort. A minute later, Hungary came downstairs wearing a blouse and pajama pants, her hair a complete mess, and went off to the laundry room. The Nations in the kitchen exchanged a second confused look as Hungary left the laundry room, apparently without finding what she was looking for, and headed back for the stairs. As she did, Poland came skipping, _literally_ skipping, past her into the kitchen, cheerfully bidding her good morning as he passed. He gave no such greeting to the Nations in the kitchen, but that didn't particularly matter because they wouldn't have noticed anyway. They were a bit preoccupied with his outfit: a white blouse with a lacey collar, a dark green skirt, and stockings. No shoes, probably because there weren't any shoes in the house that would both fit him and look right with the outfit.

Germany found his voice first. "Poland, _what_ are you wearing?" he asked in a voice that implied that his desire to settle the matter without violence was putting up a valiant effort, but losing the battle nonetheless.

Poland looked at him, cocking his head to the side in confusion. "Um...clothes?" he guessed.

Germany's eye twitched. Austria pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away, preferring to pretend that the situation was not happening. Prussia did his best to stop himself from laughing, but it was clear that whatever mental wall he'd built to hold back the laughter was only a temporary solution at best.

"I can see that," Germany said. His desire to settle the matter without violence was putting up its best attempt at resistance, but its foe was simply too strong for it and it was only a matter of time until it was defeated. "Why are you wearing Hungary's clothes?"

Poland shrugged. "Why not?"

Prussia's mental wall fell with a mighty crash and the laughter, restrained until now, burst forth.

This did not help Germany's desire to settle the matter without violence.

"Poland," Germany said, forcing himself to stay as calm and rational and sane and nonviolent as possible. "Go upstairs and change into your regular clothes. Now."

"What? You don't like this outfit? I think it's totally cute!" He twirled, arms out, to demonstrate his point. "Do you not like the shirt with it?"

Germany's desire to settle the matter without violence was stabbed through the stomach with a sword and left to bleed. He took a step toward the blond, but was interrupted by Hungary, who had gotten halfway up the stairs before stopping abruptly and returning to the kitchen with a rather homicidal look on her face.

"I wanted to wear that today!" she exclaimed. "What did you do, go through my closet while I was asleep?"

"No, I grabbed this, like, yesterday evening," Poland said.

"Without asking!"

Poland paused and thought about this. "Oh. I guess I did forget about that."

Hungary gave him a disapproving glare. "Go upstairs and change! Right now! I'm wearing that skirt today!"

Poland pouted. "Aww, but it's _cute_."

"That's why I want to wear it."

"Okay, okay, fine," Poland grumbled, heading for the stairs.

"And _ask_ next time!" Hungary called after him.

Germany gave her a Look. "Don't encourage him!"

Poland, meanwhile, called down the stairs, "Sorry! I forgot, okay! I totally meant to ask!"

Hungary glared at him, not seeming to register Germany's glare, but followed him upstairs to get her outfit once he'd changed out of it.

Prussia laughed harder.

Austria hit him with a spoon.

This only encouraged him.

Breakfast was chaotic that day.

One good thing came from the skirt episode, though: Poland, presumably as a gesture of apology to Hungary for taking her skirt without asking, shut up and did his chores after only being told twice, the first time by Germany, the second by a still-annoyed Hungary. As soon as Poland left the room to wash the breakfast dishes, Germany summoned his allies to the conference room as quietly as possible, not wanting to alert Poland to the fact that something worth eavesdropping on was happening.

Austria ended up being assigned the job of lookout, and ended up sitting in a chair by the door, keeping an eye out for eavesdroppers. Prussia and Hungary, meanwhile, seated themselves at the table. Technically speaking, Hungary wasn't quite _supposed_ to be there, since she wasn't an official member of their alliance yet, but nobody cared. Especially not Hungary, who had been quite eager to join in on the meeting from the start, and had been bugging her boss to allow her to join the alliance for quite some time.

Germany sat down at the head of the conference table, not because he particularly cared about being at the head of the table, but because it was the nearest seat.

"So when're we invading?" was the first thing out of Prussia's mouth. Naturally. There was a collective eye-roll on the part of everyone else in the room.

"Maybe we should make a battle plan first," suggested Austria. "We might have more success that way."

"Okay, so do we have anything set in stone, or do we get to come up with this from scratch?" Prussia asked eagerly. "Because I have a few ideas."

"Of course you do," Hungary said.

"Let's hear them," Germany said. "The sooner we figure out what we're doing, the less chance of Poland overhearing and warning someone."

"I still maintain that we should just lock him in his room," Austria said.

"He'd climb out the window," Prussia pointed out. "Although we could tie him to a chair."

"I'd prefer that he not know that there's anything to overhear," Germany said. "That way we don't have to worry about him trying to sneak into my office the second we take our eyes off of him."

"He'll figure it out eventually," Prussia argued. "I mean, I think he's gonna notice a war. How are we going to keep him from sneaking into your office or just walking out the front door when we're in another country?"

"We'll just have someone here to keep an eye on him," Germany said. "That's why I'm glad we've got Hungary. She can't justify going out to the war, but she can at least babysit."

"But only until my boss officially joins, right?" Hungary asked. "Then I can help in the actual war?"

Germany nodded. "At that point, we'll just have...someone else home."

"I volunteer Austria," Prussia said. "Since he's useless."

Hungary went to punch him but Germany leaned over and caught her wrist just in time, giving her a disapproving look. "The purpose of this war council is to plan the war, not to start one amongst ourselves. No violence in the war council."

"What about after the war council?" Prussia asked hopefully. Germany treated him to a Look of increased intensity.

"No violence after the war council either."

"Jerk," Prussia muttered.

Germany rolled his eyes. "The purpose of this meeting was to make a battle plan, not to fight amongst ourselves. Does anybody have any ideas that we can start with?" he asked, looking at Prussia expectantly.

Prussia nodded enthusiastically. "Of course!" His grin would not have been out of place on a villain from one of America's comic books, not that anyone in the room knew that, since nobody in the room actually _read_ America's comic books. The silver-haired Nation pulled some folded up papers from his pocket and set them on the table. "Okay, so here's what I was thinking. Our tanks are _way_ faster than France's, so..."

Germany sighed. "Prussia, we've had this talk. This idea of yours is too risky."

Prussia groaned. "No it _isn't_, if you'd just think about it. Yeah, the flanks are exposed and all, but France isn't fast enough to take advantage of that. Plus we've got the element of surprise on our side. He wouldn't know what hit him."

"You can't apply storm troop tactics to tanks!"

"Yes, you can! And should!"

"Prussia, we talked about this already. We aren't going with your plan. It leaves the flanks exposed, leaves the rear exposed, and moves too quickly for the infantry to keep up. There's too much risk. Do you have any less risky plans?"

"No, and I shouldn't need any!"

Germany turned to Austria and Hungary. "Do either of you have any ideas? Preferably ideas less insane than Prussia's?" Austria and Hungary shook their heads. "Okay," Germany said. "Then let's figure something out."

Several hours, two quick breaks to find excuses to shoo Poland away without letting him know that something was up, and innumerable confrontations between Prussia and Austria later, the now-rather-homicidal Nations in the conference room succeeded in coming up with a plan that was considered at least functional by everyone except Prussia, who was still sulking because Germany had rejected his earlier plan and because he very much disagreed with the current one.

The plan they came up with may not have been the most brilliant military strategy ever conceived, but at least it _was_ a military strategy. It consisted of the main attack carried out by Army Group B on the right wing of the attack, facing the Netherlands and northern Belgium. The bulk of the panzers would thrust on both sides of Brussels toward Bruges to seize Belgium's portion of the Channel coast.

Prussia was less than thrilled. "This plan is just...blah. Boring. Uninspired. Unawesome."

"Prussia..." Germany groaned in the tone of a parent who has, over the past few hours, become really, _really_ tired of answering a toddler's repeated questions.

"What? Your plan is blah!"

"And your plan is insane," Austria pointed out. Prussia glared at him and made a rude hand gesture.

"Would you stop arguing?!" Germany exclaimed. "Look, Prussia, if you don't like this plan, feel free to come up with a new one, but I'll tell you right now that we are _not_ using any plan that's as risky as the one you're currently advocating. Meeting adjourned. Leave the conference room, everyone. Prussia, don't leave battle plans on the table for Poland to find."

"Remind me why we have to have him in the house," Prussia muttered.

"Because that's how it works," Austria said. "You take over a country, the Nation works for you. I don't like him either, but that's how it is."

"I know that," Prussia snapped. "Really, though, does _anyone_ want him here? We have to worry about him eavesdropping on meetings, make sure he doesn't get into rooms he's not supposed to be in, fight him over chores _every day_...why couldn't we have just left him in Warsaw. I mean, there's no real benefit to him being here."

"Because our boss wanted us to keep him here," Germany said.

"At least this way we can keep an eye on him," Austria put in.

Prussia groaned. "Fine, but when he starts sabotaging our war, I want everyone to remember that I've been opposed to his presence here from the start."

"Duly noted," Germany said. "Now I'm going to deliver the battle plan we came up with to our boss. You three…try not to kill each other while I'm gone."

"Can we kill Poland?" Prussia asked hopefully.

Germany considered this. "Only if you're willing to clean up the mess."

Prussia and Austria looked at each other. "I think it'd be worth it," Prussia said. Austria nodded in agreement. Hungary just rolled her eyes and went to make lunch since everyone else was too distracted.

* * *

**Authors' Note**

Historical Stuff:

- Okay, so the first scene is the end of the (first) Battle of Changsha. China wins. Congratulations, China! Now go back to the hospital so the doctors can say 'I told you so.'

- Since there's not really any history going on in the second scene, let's skip to the third scene, in which Lithuania signs that treaty. Basically, when he got to the third meeting, Russia just flat-out refused to discuss the matter any further and made Lithuania sign the treaty, since the alternative would be ticking off Russia and getting invaded. Either way, Russian forces would end up in Liet's country. At least by signing the treaty, he'd be getting something out of the situation. And thus, Lithuania signed the treaty.

- And now, Team Germany begins planning the next phase of the war. And, more importantly, Prussia begins advocating the strategy that will eventually become the _blitzkrieg_ we all know and love. Initially, the _blitzkrieg_ strategy was criticized for being too risky, as it left the flanks exposed and moved too fast for the infantry to keep up. Prussia eventually wins the argument, however, and the _blitzkrieg_ strategy is born! If you want to know more about this subject, I recommend the book Inside the Nazi War Machine. Heck, I recommend it even if you _don't _want to know more about the subject. It's just that good.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: Hooray, I didn't have to write as many historical notes this time! Historical notes annoy me. But unfortunately, Warsaw is busy studying for her exams, so I kinda had to write them. (Mwahaha, I'm on spring break! Of course, I won't be laughing two weeks from now, when she has spring break and I have classes.)

Warsaw's Note: I need to make muffins. In other equally irrelevant news, I have a French exam tomorrow and all I've done to study for it is watch the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And that's okay.

**If you're reading this, pleeeeease please review. Just drop us a quick word or so to let us know you exist? 'Cuz we love you. So much.**


	7. A Flip of the Coin

_Disclaimer: I am running out of ways to say this: WE DON'T OWN IT, PEOPLE. _

_Enjoy!_

**Chapter Seven: A Flip of the Coin**

_October 31, 1939  
__Helsinki, Finland_

The last time they'd sat down for one of these little chats, it had ended inconclusively. That, however, by no means meant that nothing was accomplished. Something certainly _had_ happened at Finland and Russia's last meeting: they had both been very successful in the act of making the other thoroughly ready to jump up, grab a gun, and march on forward into a war right then and there. In other words, their last attempt at negotiation hadn't gone all too well. Russia had pretended that he was _asking _for anything instead of straight-up _demanding_ it, like parents do when they want their kids to clean up their rooms, and Finland had pretended that he was actually thinking about the possibility of accepting Russia's offer and not booting him back across the Gulf between them.

Typically, that sort of meeting wasn't the kind in which vast leaps were made in Nation-to-Nation relationships and, as such, it was followed up by the customary second conference in which both parties agreed to throw diplomacy to the wind and flip the proverbial coin of war to see who was right and who was wrong.

"Since my government was opposed to your last proposal," Finland was explaining as diplomatically as he could manage under the circumstances, "I don't think they'll accept anything quite as drastic as what you're asking for." The blond smiled innocently at Russia. "But I'm sure that the two of us can work something out, right?

"Of course," Russia beamed back, secretly resenting Finland for jacking his "sweet yet somehow threatening smile" shtick. "We are certainly open to other offers." Assuming that they gave the Soviet Union what it wanted. Naturally. But you did have to give people the illusion that they had a choice in the matter. It didn't have to be a particularly _good_ illusion; it was perfectly fine for the curtain—the thing that divided what was said and what simply _was_—to be transparent, just so long as there was a curtain to begin with. People were willing to fight for what they thought they had and the one who they thought had given it to them. The illusion was control, and the curtain was power.

Makes you look twice at your living room drapes, doesn't it?

Finland once again resumed tapping his pen against his desk with steadily increasing speed. Russia decided that it had to be a nervous habit of some sort, because it made the constant clicking just a little more bearable. "I think," the smaller Nation said eventually, "that we could give you the Terijoki area."

Russia did not frown or shake his head, but his disapproval was evident from merely the look in his eyes. _That is not nearly enough_, he told himself. "I am afraid that my people will not be satisfied with that," Russia replied in a mournful voice that really did sound apologetic but was still clearly not in even the slightest bit.

"I thought you might say that," Finland nodded, mimicking Russia's mock regret but not masking his true feelings any better. It didn't matter.

Russia sighed, "It is unfortunate that we must put each other in this position," he lamented. "But these are such dangerous times, Finland, and my country needs protecting."

"From a Nation you signed a non-aggression treaty with?" Finland asked innocently. Russia contemplated hitting him, diplomacy be…well, no, that wouldn't do, would it?

Instead, he shrugged his shoulders, relaxing against the back of his chair. "Germany wants revenge for the Great War, and he will tear Europe apart to get it." Russia hadn't really answered the question, at least not the one that had been spoken aloud.

"Right…" The Scandinavian country with whom Russia was attempting to remain diplomatic, albeit with less and less success as the time passed, did not appear impressed, but he couldn't have possibly denied that Germany was a strong and powerful Nation again, and perhaps he needed watching, as his defeat of Poland had shown. There was nothing wrong with taking precautions, after all. "See, I _get_ that, but that's not the problem here," The blond propped his chin up on his hand and looked Russia in the eye. "My people don't want to give up our land because somebody else's country _might _get invaded." There was an unspoken but still fairly obvious _especially not if that country is yours_ tacked onto the end. Finland sat back, watching carefully to see what his guest would do. And Russia could think of a lot of things that he might have done had he not known for sure that Finland was keeping a gun close at hand, because, after all, there was nothing wrong with taking precautions, right?

Russia wasn't very fond of Finland. He supposed nobody really _liked_ the people that stood up to them and got in their way, but that didn't change anything. He was frustrated with Finland's continued denial of land for the Soviet Union, despite Russia agreeing to compensate him with other territory. There was nothing that Russia disliked more than someone who could actually go toe to toe with him. In the office, on the battlefield, it didn't matter. Russia wondered when Finland had gotten so very annoying.

That is a shame," Russia told the Nation he was attempting to convince. _But I don't really _have_ to convince him_, the eastern country mused to himself, _and it really isn't a shame_. He watched Finland fidget in place, the smaller country evidently out of his comfort zone. Finland may have been silly, thinking he could defy the Soviet Union like this, but at least he wasn't downright stupid. Russia had to give him that. He had enough sense to be nervous, if nothing else. Even if he was ready and willing to start a war he'd undoubtedly never win. But the thing was, that was okay with Russia's boss, and what was okay with Russia's boss was just fine and dandy in the Nation's book. If Finland wanted a war, his neighbor would oh-so gladly oblige him. That was the _fun_ kind of negotiation. "Well, then, Finland. What would you have me do?" Russia was pleased to see the pen begin to tap faster once he started to speak. Finland shrugged, sinking lower into his chair. The bigger Nation leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk that divided the Scandinavian country and himself. "I would hate to see you get hurt, Finland," he said sweetly.

Finland contemplated this for brief while, poking his chin with the tip of the pen, unknowingly amusing his guest by making little blue marks on the bottom of his face. He stared down at the papers on the table before him, glanced up at Russia, and then quickly back down to the treaty.

And for a moment there, Russia thought he had him.

Finland carefully set the pen down and met Russia's eyes. "I don't think we'll be reaching an agreement today, Russia," Finland said quietly by firmly.

Russia clucked his tongue disapprovingly. War is was, then. "I see," he sighed sadly. "Are you sure, Finland?" _One last chance._

"I am."

Russia shook his head slowly, looking disappointedly down at the country he'd been negotiating with as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet. "I see," he repeated. He placed a hand on the document over which all of this fuss was being made and gave it a gentle push toward his neighbor. "You should keep this," Russia informed the still-seated young man across from him. "Think about it."

"I will," Finland assured him. That was probably true, Russia reasoned. It just wouldn't be in a way that did the Soviet Union any good. It wouldn't do Finland any good, either, he reminded himself happily. "Now, I _believe_ you were just leaving."

As Finland frostily escorted him to the door, Russia decided that perhaps his neighbor actually _was_ downright stupid after all.

-o-

_November 8, 1939  
__Washington, D.C., United States of America_

Perhaps there were better places to sit and contemplate one's existence than the roof of the White House, but none of them had occurred to America just yet. Granted, he would likely need to start thinking of alternate locations pretty soon, because _someone_ was bound to tell Roosevelt, and America's boss would probably take issue with his country's chosen resting place and yell at him to get down. And, just to make things worse, it would probably come out like a direct order—the kind you _expect_ to be obeyed—and when a Nation's boss gave them one of those, well… There was some sort of a freaky compulsion clause in the make-up of an anthropomorphic personification, and America didn't like it. None of the Nations did, and that was it was one of the many things that nobody ever mentioned to their bosses. Sometimes, though, you got unlucky and there was some font-of-all-knowledge janitor willing to whisper in the President's ear. The man was on his second term and he still hadn't picked up on the Nations Must Obey a Direct Order from Their Bosses thing yet, however, and America wasn't looking to change that any time soon.

Of course, the boy reasoned, he had probably never found out simply because he'd never needed to. After Hoover, America would have taken _anyone_, and there had been Roosevelt, with his confidence and his energy and his promises of "happy days" and a "New Deal," whatever that meant exactly. America hadn't cared, just so long as it was different than the Old Deal, because the Old Deal was just making things worse. "This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms," Roosevelt had said, and a call to arms meant action, and action meant that maybe there _was_ some way out of the Depression after all. America's people seemed to have been thinking along the same lines, because Roosevelt had come out of the election with just over 57% of the popular vote and a record-setting 472 electoral votes—in other words, a clear victory.

That was all fine and good, America had thought to himself in between bouts of sulking conspicuously around the White House, arguing with Hoover, and waiting for his new President to be sworn in already, but Roosevelt's speeches were only that. Speeches. Just words, promises made at the point where people guaranteed everything, anything. What about truth? What about that action? America had worried endlessly that his new boss would get about as much done as the old boss, and that had _scared_ him. If things didn't start changing soon, he was absolutely going to die. Well, not literally. If we're speaking in the realm of the possible, he'd been much more likely to start picketing in the Oval Office. Okay, not start, either; _resume_ picketing in the Oval Office. The point was, something had to give, and it had to give soon.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," Roosevelt had declared in his inaugural address. America had cracked a smile at that, because it had been exactly what he'd needed to hear.

On Roosevelt's first real day on the job, America had dragged him aside for an awkward and unnecessary introduction—anyone connected to politics was likely to be familiar with the boy, as he hardly kept his identity a secret—and a babbled please-don't-screw-me-up-any-more speech that America had spent the whole of the previous night on, trying to make it sound serious and intelligent and mature. Roosevelt had patted him amiably on the shoulder and reminded America that he was repealing Prohibition. And that had been just what his new charge needed to hear as well.

It was then that the young Nation began to suspect his boss of being some sort of a psychic or something.

To America's immeasurable delight, things had gotten better. Roosevelt had gotten right to work: fixing the banks, creating jobs, finding a way to reduce crop surpluses so that said crops were actually worth something again, and getting America back his frickin' beer. Not a bad start, if you asked the country himself. Not bad at all. Still, the situation wasn't painting any prettier a picture for the world. America hadn't expected the economy to bounce right back overnight, and he hadn't expected the lines of homeless and unemployed to vanish without a trace in a matter of days—he'd long since lost any hope of such a rapid recovery. The people were still miserable, the citizens were still angry, and their Nation was still anxious, bordering on terrified. But, hey, at least FDR was better than Hoover. And thing could only get better, right? _Right_?

The day that Roosevelt interrupted a meeting to pull his too-quiet country out into the hall and make him repeat, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," until the boy couldn't help but believe it was the day that America decided for absolute certain that his boss was telepathic. He had yet to relinquish that theory.

Roosevelt was working hard. He had been since the start of his first term; it was really no wonder he'd gotten himself re-elected in a landslide once his initial four years were up. America had been relieved beyond words, to be honest. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was America's hero. So was Superman. That right there said a lot about the young country's feelings for his boss.

America stared up at the clouds, contemplating the boss, the world, the weather, and war. Mostly in that order. He tapped his foot on the roof of the White House—something that very few people could claim to have done, he suspected. It was a good place to come when you needed to be alone to think for a while. You just had to have a way to keep security from flipping the crap out and/or decking you out in bullet holes. Fortunately, America had that requirement covered fairly easily.

Here they were, America and his boss, standing on the sidelines of what he suspected quite strongly would turn out to be another nasty World War. America stifled a snort of epic proportions. You couldn't leave the European countries alone for _five minutes_ without somebody getting into it with somebody else, could you? It was pretty sad, when you thought about it. You couldn't do much more than think about it, though, America had learned over the years, because if you said it out loud…well, Europe would stop fighting for five minutes. With each other, at least. You and your big mouth, on the other hand, weren't so lucky.

America frowned. Still, though…the situation had him pretty worried. Another war, huh? Yeah, he'd seen it coming decades ago. Then again, so had everybody else. But, either way, England and France were gearing up for Round Two with Germany and Prussia; Japan was messing around at China's place again—seriously, weren't they supposed to be brothers or something? Not that America could really talk about _that_, considering his own little coming of age war with England, but, hey, that had been _different_! Point was, things over on the other side of the globe weren't looking too good. Naturally, America wanted to do something. He had plenty of ideas and he had plenty of energy, so couldn't he just lend a hand? Europe was still showing the tell-tale scars from the Great War, after all, and heroes didn't just sit idly by and watch these sorts of fights. They got involved. They punched the bad guy in the nose. They saved the day.

To America's joy, Roosevelt had been with him on the Let's Do Something About This Nonsense front. Sure, his ideas were less like, "Let's hop the next ship to France and kick some Nazi butt!" and more like, "Let's provide what aid we can to the Allies without sending our boys off to another foreign war." Because _apparently _people took issue with that, primarily the isolationists. _Screw the isolationists_, America thought huffily. He'd never been fully on board with that train of thought, anyway. The boy was born to expand, to explore, to peek over the proverbial fence and offer his (usually unwanted) two cents and his (usually unwanted) assistance with just about anything and everything that could possibly come up. America would take what he could get, however, and he would definitely like it.

The whole "sell nothing to the combatants" bit of the Neutrality Acts, Roosevelt had argued, was totally unfair. It practically _encouraged_ the aggression, his country had agreed enthusiastically, doing his best impression of a bobblehead as they discussed prospective changes. If the good guys couldn't get help, then the bad guys could just walk all over them, couldn't they? It was _stupid_. And downright un-American!

The neat part was that Roosevelt had managed to convince Congress of the same thing, more or less, because they'd agreed to allow America to re-start his cash-and-carry deal with the belligerent Nations. America was ecstatic. It wasn't much, but it was a small foothold in the conflict. It was a _start_.

Congress had, in addition, added a bit about America citizens not being allowed to enter what the President designated war zones and some other junk about arms trade without a license being a federal crime. To be honest, America had sort of missed that part of the conversation with his boss. He'd been a bit caught up in his new status as a slightly less neutral country. Roosevelt had given up on explaining it for the moment and let his country revel; America was sure he'd hear all about it again at dinner, anyway.

Propping one leg up over the other, America surveyed the sky and beamed. It was a nice day, he though. A little windy, sure, but what the heck: if the White House roof was a nice place for a lie-down-and-think, it would be a great place to fly a kite. Now there was an idea…

America sat up a little more, shifting his weight up onto his elbows. He stared down at the lawn and gave the nearby gardener a cheery wave. The gesture was hesitantly returned as the older man shook his head in what was sadly not disbelief, but more likely jaded amusement. America watched the employee work for a while before returning his gaze to the clouds above.

He wanted in this war. He usually wanted in conflicts, though. It came with his "I'm the Hero!" attitude, he wanted to fight for justice and happiness and democracy and puppies and Christmas. That was what heroes did, after all. They protected people.

His country wasn't entirely behind him on this one, though. Heck, he was in the minority for once. He got the "Americans dying in someone else's fight" thing, he really did. No one understood it more than him. They were his boys too, after all. And when he thought about things as the United States of America, he wanted his people to stay right where they were: at home, safe from machine guns and grenades and snipers, out of the battles, out of the trenches—they weren't doing trenches again, were they? Shoot, if they were using the trenches, the _heck_ with puppies and Christmas, America was not doing that again. When America though about things as the personification of a country, he didn't want to go to war at all. It was when he thought about things as a person in his own right, as Alfred F. Jones, that things stopped being so black and white. That was when someone poured the prospective heroism and the prospective death toll into a little Styrofoam bowl, swirled them around with a paint brush, and beheld the newly-created shade of gray.

That was when America stopped knowing just what to think.

Thank goodness for compromise, right? At least he was able to help from where he was now, providing arms and other useful goods to the Nations doing the actual fighting. It didn't satisfy either team of America's mental tug-of-war, but it didn't upset either side _too_ too much, and that was good enough for now.

Thank goodness his boss knew better than to jump right into the argument on either side. He eased into the middle. That worked better than picking a side right off the bat and sticking with it. Heads, we march on Germany tomorrow; tails, _screw 'em all_. America had a feeling that neither of the above was the correct answer. Always nice to work your way into things from the nice, safe, middle ground then. He'd just have to see where the world took him, wouldn't he?

America smiled, settled into the comfortable cloth of his beloved bomber jacket, and waited for somebody to tell the President that their country needed _another_ stern talking to.

He didn't have to wait very long.

-o-

_November 26, 1939  
__Moscow, Russia_

Any time a Nation's country was attacked, they could tell.

If the attack came as part of an invasion, it tended to cause some very unpleasant nausea that made regular sickness seem downright pleasant in comparison. If the attack wasn't part of an invasion, however, it hurt. There were different levels of pain, of course, depending on the amount of damage done, but there was always something.

And if the pain was self-inflicted, it felt kinda weird.

So it wasn't that it didn't hurt Russia when Mainila was attacked. It did hurt; it just didn't hurt all that bad. It felt pretty weird, too, like he'd taken a knife and just started poking at himself with it until he saw blood. Most attacks didn't feel quite like that, probably because most of the time, Nations didn't attack themselves; they attacked each other. Attacking other Nations was much more fun, after all, and came with the added bonus of possibly getting cool new stuff out of it. Attacking yourself was weird and not fun, and it kinda hurt, plus you didn't usually get anything from it, so most Nations tended to avoid that course of action. If there was some kind of civil war thing going on, maybe, but when everything was nice and peaceful, why would anyone want to ruin things by attacking their own country?

The answer, of course, was so that they could start a war with their neighbor while making it look like the neighbor had been the one to start it. The one who started the war tended to look like the bad guy to the rest of the world, after all, and looking like the bad guy does tend to cause problems sooner or later. But if everyone thinks that the other guy started it, suddenly they're not only allowing you to attack him without interference, they're cheering you on. False flag operations are wondrous things.

Okay, so Russia didn't _actually_ expect the rest of the world to cheer him on, false flag operation or not. But even when he wasn't expecting everyone else's enthusiastic support, there was a formula to this kind of thing. Nowadays, you can't just invade whenever you want to. In these more civilized, modern times, you can't just kick down your neighbor's door. You have to have a reason for it.

You can't kick down the neighbor's door until you've yelled down the street that they threw a rock through your window first.

And so, Russia had thrown a rock through his own window by orchestrating the shelling of Mainila, and was currently preparing to grab a megaphone and make sure that everyone in every house on Europe Street knew that it was all Finland's doing. Of course, since everyone in every house on Europe Street didn't like Russia all that much, he doubted that they would listen to a word that he said, but he was going to yell down the street anyway. It was the principle of the thing. There was a formula to follow, after all. Russia couldn't just pretend that he didn't have any nonaggression agreements with Finland. He had to find an excuse to withdraw from them. Or, in the absence of a legitimate excuse, he'd have to manufacture one.

Russia picked up the phone and called Finland.

Judging by Finland's less-than-happy tone of voice when he answered the phone, Russia suspected that the Nordic Nation had a pretty good guess as to the reason for this phone call and was very much _not_ in the mood to deal with Russia's accusations of rock throwing and artillery firing. Russia, meanwhile, didn't really care whether Finland was in the mood for it or not. If Finland didn't want to deal with Russia, he should have just given up that territory and stayed out of Russia's way.

Finland listened to Russia's accusations in silence, waiting patiently (or at least something that mimicked patience) until Russia finished before he said anything. The polite effect of this was somewhat cancelled out by the fact that the first thing out of Finland's mouth was "that's ridiculous."

"What?" Russia demanded in a somewhat warning tone, not entirely used to people being this blunt with him. Well, at least not people who weren't Latvia, who at least panicked and tried to backpedal once he realized what he'd said.

"Your accusations are ridiculous," Finland repeated. "I couldn't possibly have attacked you. None of my artillery batteries are close enough."

"If you didn't do it, then who did?" Russia asked.

"I don't know," Finland said innocently, as if he didn't have a pretty good idea of who was behind the attack. "I think the best way to resolve this would be a joint investigation. We can look into it together and find out who attacked you. I'm sure that the investigation will clearly show that it would be _impossible_ for it to have been me. I looked into it as soon as I heard what happened, but I think it would be best for us to investigate the incident together to make sure that we're on the same page."

"That won't be necessary," Russia told Finland. "Nobody except you could have been responsible, after all. Your attack resulted in four deaths and nine injuries, and it violated the nonaggression agreements between our countries. I want you to take responsibility for it and apologize."

"I'm not going to apologize for something I didn't do, Russia," Finland said, in that special tone of voice that people use when they're pretending to be civil until they get away from other people and into an area where violence can break out without any negative consequences.

"I also want you to move your forces farther away from our border," Russia continued as if Finland hadn't spoken.

"That isn't going to happen," Finland said, slowly and insistently. "You don't have any solid proof that I was the one behind the attack. If you did, you'd have brought it up already. Clearly this means we should _look into the matter_ before anyone starts making demands."

"Your hostile reaction isn't helping matters," Russia chided.

"I'm not…this isn't _hostile._ I'm just saying that we should look into the issue before we start pointing fingers."

"And _I'm_ saying that an investigation is unnecessary. Now, I understand that you probably need to talk things over with your government before you do anything. Call me back with your decision, _da_?"

Finland began to snap something at Russia. Russia promptly proceeded to hang up mid-first-syllable.

-o-

_November 30, 1939  
__The Russian-Finnish Border_

Getting invaded was, quite obviously, not the most fun thing in the world. There was nausea, for one thing, and more importantly, there was the fact that getting invaded had a slight tendency to result in, you know, war. And war wasn't particularly fun. A nice adrenaline rush, a great way to get cool stuff if you won, and most importantly, a wonderful way to get away with punching someone you don't like without getting yelled at by your boss afterward. It wasn't fun, though. Getting shot sucked, getting killed sucked worse, and having to be constantly surrounded by pain and death and suffering for weeks or months or even years sucked worst of all.

Of course, just because it wasn't _fun_ didn't mean that Finland had to get all angsty and upset about it. The trick was to look on the bright side. Beating Russia was going to be absolutely _wonderful_. The perfect cathartic cure-slash-revenge for all the headaches Russia had caused with his idiotic negotiations and accusations of hostility.

But first, Finland had the inevitable warning nausea to deal with.

The thing about the inevitable warning nausea was that it was usually annoying—nobody liked feeling like they were about to throw their guts up, after all—but there was one thing that made it bearable: it was necessary. Nations needed to know when they were getting invaded, after all. Nobody wanted to sleep through an invasion and find out later that they'd missed their chance to end the war early. Of course, at the same time, if someone already knew that they were going to get invaded, had already prepared for the invasion, and were already in position to start fighting off the invasion the instant it happened…suddenly the one redeeming feature of the inevitable warning nausea was gone, and all that remained was annoyance and a whole lot of dry heaving. Oh, and some very concerned soldiers who don't quite like the idea of their country (who tended to fail at keeping the national personification thing a secret even when he _was_ trying) looking like he was about to throw up.

Finland flapped a hand at the concerned soldiers, trying to tell them not to worry about him, and to get back to whatever they were supposed to be doing. The soldiers either didn't care, or just weren't fluent in the language of hand-flapping. It _had_ been a pretty vague signal.

Once Finland managed to stop dry heaving and get up, he tried using his words, now that his mouth was capable of properly producing them. "Russia's here," he gasped. "I'm fine; focus on the invasion."

He pulled out his gun and got ready to do the same.

It wasn't long, really just a couple of minutes, before Russia and his troops arrived, and it wasn't long before Finland and Russia found themselves facing off.

Russia was fighting with the infantry. It wasn't all that much of a surprise; Russia was definitely suited for more one-on-one fighting, rather than letting a tank do the damage for him. Finland, meanwhile, would have preferred to be somewhere far off with a sniper rifle; the way he looked at it, the best way to fight was to put yourself out of the enemy's range and not let them know you were there, so that they couldn't attack you or defend themselves from your attack. Staying well away from danger while still being dangerous to the enemy was definitely the best approach. Unfortunately, however, Finland hadn't been entirely certain of where Russia would strike. Nation's intuition put him where he needed to be, but it wouldn't point him in the direction of the best spot to set up shop with a sniper rifle. After this battle, Finland would have an easier time positioning himself for the sniper thing; once he knew exactly where Russia was, he'd know where he needed to be to fight him. But for now, Finland was stuck in the middle of the fighting, facing off against Russia and his tanks and his army. His very, very large army. Finland was incredibly outnumbered here.

But he'd known he would be, and he had more important things to think about than numbers. Numbers weren't a guarantee of victory in a battle, Finland reminded himself. They also couldn't put a bullet in your brain and make you dead. A gun could do that, though. Russia had numbers and he had a gun, and, as Finland reminded himself, the gun was the important issue right now. He could deal with numbers later. Right now, he needed to think about using his own gun to put a bullet in Russia's brain before Russia could put one in his.

He also reminded himself that now was not the time to think about how much he'd have preferred to be far away, looking at the scene through a sniper rifle. Sniper rifles that weren't actually present couldn't kill the enemy, so they were about as relevant to the current situation as numbers. The important thing at the moment was fighting Russia and either kicking him out right here and now, or else at least giving him a whole lot of trouble while making sure not to get shot or killed or, worst and scariest of all, captured. Getting captured by Russia was never fun; the guy had a bit of a reputation for being...shall we say _not particularly nice_ to prisoners of war. Torture was forbidden by both the Geneva Convention and the unspoken rules of warfare that the Nations had developed. But Russia wasn't really all that big on rules, especially since his revolution. Well, Finland didn't actually know from personal experience how well-deserved Russia's reputation for not being big on rules ever since his revolution was, but he did know that he _really_ did not want to find out.

So, don't get shot, don't get killed, and _definitely_ don't get captured. Put a bullet in his head or chase him off. Don't think about numbers or the lack of sniper rifle.

Got it.

"Russia, I'm only going to say this once," Finland said, oddly calm for someone so outnumbered and lacking his weapon of choice. _Focus, Finny_. "Get out of my country." He said it slowly and loudly and clearly to make sure Russia heard it properly over the noise of the fighting.

"Finland," Russia said in the voice of a parent explaining to a kicking-and-screaming child exactly why they've been put in the Naughty Corner. "You brought this on yourself. You started this by attacking Mainila."

Ugh. Finland was sick of hearing that word. "I didn't attack the stupid place!" Finland snapped. "We both know that! Just get out!" _And never mention the name of that town again_.

Russia sighed, still sounding like an annoyed parent. "Your hostility toward-"

And that was another word Finland was sick of hearing. Hostility. Well, fine, if Russia wanted Finland to be hostile, Finland was only too happy to oblige. He interrupted Russia mid-sentence by firing a few bullets at him. _How's _that_ for hostility?_

Finally, _finally_, Russia stopped spouting propaganda, shut up, and started fighting. Well, technically, his first move was dodging, not fighting. He got the heck out of the way of the bullets while Finland was busy pulling the trigger.

Then Russia fired back, as one generally does when one is fired at, and the fight, not to mention the war, began in earnest.

Fortunately, Russia had as much success hitting Finland as Finland had at hitting Russia a second ago, thanks to Finland having anticipated the inevitable return fire. He shot at Russia some more. He didn't hit him, but he did hit a couple of Random Background Soldiers, which was good. Russia fired back, and hit one of Finland's Background Soldiers, which was a whole lot less good. The two Nations continued to follow this pattern as around them, Russia's tanks and the numbers that Finland wasn't supposed to be thinking about caused problems for Finland's soldiers. Finland and his people fought hard and fought well, but this _was_ Russia's massive army against not all of Finland's not-as-massive army. It wasn't too long before Finland found himself retreating. Fortunately, not in the sense of turning around and running like Italy, but still, Finland found himself forced further and further back, with Russia getting further and further into his territory (which was _not acceptable_, Finland mentally snapped at himself, but which he was unable to do anything about at the moment, despite his best efforts).

And then the inevitable happened. After all, two people can't just shoot at each other a whole lot like this without one of them eventually hitting the other. Well, it's certainly possible, but not when both people have proper experience and both know what they're doing and are quite _good_ at what they're doing. It was inevitable that someone, sooner or later, would get shot. Unfortunately, the first someone to get shot was Finland.

It wasn't anything life threatening; the bullet just grazed his leg. But it _was_ enough to both make him stumble and make him _really_ wish he was somewhere far off with a sniper rifle.

(_Again_ with the sniper rifle he couldn't have at the moment.)

Finland got his balance, wincing at the pain in his leg as he did so, and suddenly found himself retreating a little bit faster. This was _not acceptable_, but at the same time, he didn't really have all that much choice in the matter.

For now.

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Stuff:  


- Finland and Russia's negotiations are pretty self-explanatory, so I'll skip that.

- America's Neutrality Acts: basically, Roosevelt finally convinced congress to change the Neutrality Acts to allow arms trade with belligerent nations. Also, American citizens and ships were barred from entering war zones, and the National Munitions Control Board was charged with issuing licenses for all arms imports and exports, and arms trade without a license became a federal crime.

- Shelling of Mainila: Basically, Russia attacked his own village and blamed in on Finland in order to have an excuse to start a war. Finland, meanwhile, didn't have any artillery close enough to attack Mainila, and had in fact moved his artillery _away_ from the border to make sure that nothing like this happened. Russia claimed that the attack had caused losses in personnel. His records don't show any losses, but when has that ever stopped someone determined to start a war?

- And thus, the Winter War begins! I'm not really sure what to say about this part. Russia invaded, Finland fought back but ended up retreating...yeah.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: Well, I've got just a few hours of spring break left, and I'm using them to study for a German test tomorrow. Ugh. This is going to suck. I mean, I love German, but I hate studying it. Also, my textbook has a strange and somewhat annoying obsession with discos. If I see the sentence"why doesn't [name] what to go to the disco?" or "do you go to the disco often?" I am going to strangle someone.

Warsaw's Note: You guys, I have no life. What I do have are rapidly resurfacing obsessions with Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, ciphers, and tea. Not that I don't normally like tea or anything. It's just that I had twenty-seven cups this weekend. Twenty-seven. And I didn't get up before noon either day. I don't see how this can end well.

**Reviews would be really, really nice...**


	8. Smile

_Disclaimer: Obviously, we own Hetalia. We're not two teenaged American history nerds. What are you talking about?_

**Chapter Eight: Smile**

_December 9, 1939  
S__uomussalmi, Finland_

Sometimes, Russia questioned why exactly someone would think that it was a good idea to purge their army, removing many of its more experienced members in the process, and then march right off to war shortly after. It seemed a little silly to Russia when he thought about it too much, but he would always beat that nagging little voice of reason back into submission before too long—because it _had_ to be done, because they _weren't_ good Soviets, because they were "undesirables" for a _reason_—and then distract himself with the task at hand.

Fighting off an enemy advance made for a pretty good distraction, he'd learned. This was especially true when you really didn't like the aforementioned enemy because he was a stubborn little bugger who didn't cave under pressure, even from such a large and powerful adversary, like everybody else did. It was truer still when said little bugger had recently had his troops reinforced and was attempting to retake a part of his territory. And, you can imagine, if that enemy happened to have destroyed the village before losing said territory, just to make sure that you didn't have a _comfy_ place to spend the night…then the battle _really_ kept your attention away from the little voices in your head. Yes, all that came together nicely into a more than sufficient distraction.

Russia gave the enemy lines the best scan he could manage in light of the falling snow. No sign of Finland, unfortunately. Russia scowled. _Where are you, little Finny?_ he wondered as he squinted, trying to seek out the smaller Nation amongst the Finn's troops. No such luck. The other country must have been hiding out in a tree somewhere, then, if it was possible. At _all_ possible. If you gave Finland even the tiniest amount of choice in the matter, he would snap up a sniper rifle and skip off to provide cover from afar before you could say another word. It was cowardly, if you asked Russia. Nations were meant to meet face to face on the battlefield, not to try and take each other out from hidden-away nests in the distance. Cowardly, yes, and inconvenient. If Russia was going to fight someone, he wanted to _fight_ them. Not just their troops. The soldiers were inconsequential; it was all about the personifications, because that way your _real_ enemy in its purest form.

The arctic Nation sighed, releasing a visible mist of breath into the frigid air, and aimed his rifle. Ah, well. Finland or no Finland, Russia had a job to do here, right? Right.

He pulled the trigger, twitched ever so slightly as he was hit with a wave of the Feeling of Being Watched, and stepped quickly out of the way of an oncoming bullet.

_Ah. There you are_.

It was a neat trick, to be sure—using the Nation sense to tell when you were being targeted. That said, it was only really good for one use, and now Russia would need to put forth a little effort if he intended to stay in one piece. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the enemy once more as he raised his rifle, rapidly growing more and more impatient with Finland's apparent invisibility. He had to be around here somewhere, didn't he? Russia looked careful, relying on his Nation sense more than his eyes to tell him where to shoot. He frowned, frustrated, and then decided to change his tactics. After all, if he couldn't find Finland, he might as well bring the neighboring country to him. In what undoubtedly made for some very confused Russian soldiers, he suddenly shouldered his rifle and headed off for a less crowded battlefield.

"Oh! Um, Mr. Braginsky, sir, what-?" blurted one of the aforementioned very confused Russia soldiers. The young man's Nation paused long enough to smile down at him in a misguided attempt at being reassuring.

"It is okay. I know what I'm doing," Russia answered simply, as though it explained everything.

He obviously expected it to, the unidentified soldier thought. His tone and expression, in fact, indicated that such a seemingly vague phrase ought to tell the man everything that he needed to know, if not more. Oh, _jeez_, had there been a memo or something? The poor, worried soldier hurriedly babbled out, "Er, right. O-of course," and watched Russia go, panicking all the while about the important orders that he seemed to have missed. And no one walked away from a battlefield that calmly, either, _especially_ not when there were bullets flying to and fro…

Meanwhile, Russia, completely oblivious to the inner turmoil his departure had just caused, casually made his way to a deserted corner of Suomussalmi, the village over which he and Finland were currently fighting, and settled down against the trunk of a skinny tree to wait for the other country, reloading his rifle as he did so. He prepared his pistol as well, as the smaller weapon was better suited for the inevitable close combat.

His enemy didn't keep him waiting long.

"Hello, little Finland!" Russia called cheerfully, completely confident in his own lack of need for the element of surprise, as the blond approached, armed similarly with a pistol and a rifle, just in case. The smiling man got to his feet, brushing snow from his pants and stretching his arms. "You took so long," he teased. "I was worried that you wouldn't come."

Finland glowered at him and said nothing, instead choosing to stop a couple dozen paces away from the larger Nation.

Russia sighed and tried a different approach. "I like your gloves," he offered pleasantly, indicating with his head towards Finland's left hand. The massive country kept his pistol at his side and his rifle on his back. No need to get into things too quickly.

The hand that was holding the smaller Nation's weapon twitched as Russia moved, and his eyes flickered briefly down towards his fingers and back up towards his enemy. "Thank you…" he said warily, questioning his neighbor's motives more than he was genuinely offering his gratitude.

"I haven't seen them before. Are they new?" Russia inquired companionably, leaning just a bit forward, sincerely interested in the response, none of which were particularly helpful to Finland's efforts to work out what his opponent was playing at.

"Er," Finland's eyebrow crept upwards in confusion, unbeknownst to its owner. "They were a gift from Sweden…" He stared at Russia, trying to simultaneously puzzle out the man's strategy and catch any slight movement so as not to be caught off of his guard by an attack.

Russia positively _beamed_. "How nice of him!" he exclaimed.

"Er," said Finland, shifting awkwardly in place, still trying to decipher the hidden purpose of this friendly conversation.

"You saw him recently, _da_? He came to visit you?"

"Yes…He said, um, that he didn't want my hands to get cold while I was…fighting," the Scandinavian Nation helpfully recounted.

"They're such a pretty blue," Russia told the other Nation, raising his gun and shooting the other country midway through the sentence without so much as a pause or tremor in his voice.

Caught off guard, Finland had barely managed to raise his gun when the bullet pierced his chest. He let out a yelp, tumbling backwards but determinedly pulling the trigger anyway, thanking his reflexes when he was able to hit Russia in the shoulder. It wasn't his best shot ever, but it was all right, given the circumstances. As he hit the ground, Finland hissed something in his own language that wasn't so much a sentence as it was a combination of _very_ nasty words smashed haphazardly together with a giant mallet in the hopes that they would get his point across. They did, and Russia clucked his tongue disapprovingly. He didn't speak Finnish, but he knew a curse word when he heard one. Or two. Or ten.

"Such terrible words," the bigger Nation scolded through clenched teeth, switching the hand his gun was in to fire off a second shot. "You shouldn't talk like that in front of company, Finland."

"Company?" Finland half-chuckled, half-spat, raising his gun with slightly shaking hands and firing off two shots in rapid succession. He mumbled something under his breath as Russia dodged his shots with ease, meanwhile forcing himself back up onto his knees, one hand clamped across his chest, the other wielding the pistol. Russia moved faster, pulling the trigger for the third time. Finland dove back down to the ground again, lucky enough to miss the bullet entirely, and rolled into a better position to shoot from, firing twice swiftly before letting out a whimper and glancing down at his chest, only affording himself a split second to analyze the spreading stain or red on his uniform. He mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "Oh, dear."

"That's better," Russia praised warmly, daring to step closer and aim again, shooting. Finland twisted out of the way as best as he could, still taking the bullet in his shoulder. "There!" Russia announced happily, his voice not at all unkind. "Now we match!"

Finland shuddered, unsure of the cause. Perhaps the cold, perhaps either of his injuries, perhaps Russia's unwavering cheer. Any was a viable source of his chill. He evidently needed to bolt.

"You're very good at dodging," Russia said sweetly, honestly intending it as a compliment. He laughed when Finland coughed out something in the Scandinavian Nation's own language at him. "That's not very polite," he informed the blond. "Speaking in a language I can't understand…I was just trying to be nice."

"Nice…" Finland repeated woozily. "Right." Russia watched the smaller country forcing himself, pain obvious, back up to his knees once more. "You know how it, _urg_, how it is when you get angry," he shook a bit more. "All diplomacy goes _right out the window_." The last few words were delivered in an obviously distressed manner, and Russia smiled pityingly at him.

"You could do with some help, _da_?" he suggested.

"Oh, wait, all of the Russian's coming back now!" Finland blurted with a grin that would make the villain of any slasher flick proud, ignoring the blood beginning to dribble down his chin from between his lips. Russia's smile disappeared when the blond began to rattle off a list of increasingly vulgar pastimes for Russia and his sisters, laughing riotously all the while.

"Take. That. Back," the bigger Nation ordered coldly, all traces of cheer gone as he raised his gun. Finland beat him to the punch, jerking his gun slightly upwards and sending Russia a chain of three bullets, all right on each other's tails. Not waiting for a response, he wobbled the rest of the way onto his feet and stumbled backwards, away from the battlefield, as fast as he could manage, trying not to collapse forward into the trail of red dots he was making in the white snow. The smaller Nation disappeared into the nearby army of trees.

Russia was lucky that they'd been messy shots; he wasn't injured too badly when the first caught him in the thigh, the second two missing entirely, something almost completely unheard of in regards to his enemy. Finland was a crack shot. Thank goodness he was injured.

The bullet that had connected with Russia's leg sent him staggering to the ground. He studied that injury, and then the one in his shoulder, scowled, and set to work bandaging them using scraps torn from his coat. The shoddy patch-up would have to do for now, he decided resolutely as he got back to his feet and limped after Finland into the woods.

He followed the blood trail into the darkness, pistol at the ready, glower twisting into something downright monstrous when he realized that the blood trail _stopped_ after only so long. He scanned the area. No. _No._ There was no way that that this sorry excuse for an opponent was getting away from him. Not now, not after what he'd said. Whatever they said about him didn't matter, but Russia did _not_ take kindly to people insulting his sisters. Dragging his injured leg along with him, all thoughts of getting it _actually_ looked at by a medic completely vanished from his mind, Russia searched his surroundings thoroughly, looking for footprints, broken branches, anything to tell him the direction Finland might have gone.

Nothing.

Russia let out what could only be described as a roar, furious with the disappearance of his opponent. Fine then. He would just have to take extra special care to _hurt_ the boy the next time the met on the battlefield. He turned, very much unhappy with his own failure.

A bullet whizzed past his ear.

Russia smiled.

"_Found you_," he sing-songed, spinning around and tipping his head back to throw his words up the branches of a tree. "Very clever, Finland. How did you manage to climb so high with all of those bullets inside of you?" Finland didn't answer, and Russia didn't care. He raised his gun and studied the tree top until he found his enemy. He fired, and this time was rewarded with a desperate shriek and a rifle dropping from amidst the leaves. Russia beamed, moving to pick up the fallen weapon. By his count, this made Finland completely unarmed, unless the smaller country had reloaded his pistol, which Russia doubted he could manage at this point. He fired again, this time getting a faint gurgle in response. He lowered his gun and, after a moment, called up, "Are you still conscious?" No answer. "You're a much better sniper when you aren't dying!" Russia pointed out, sickly sweet, and then laughed at his own twisted humor. He aimed his pistol again. "I'd like an apology," he shouted up, and it wasn't a request at all. No answer was the wrong answer. He pulled the trigger again.

Hmm. Silence. Now that wasn't right.

"Are you dead, little Finland?" Russia asked hopefully. He stepped closer to the tree, staring upwards into its tangled branches. The other Nation must've passed out at the very least, or more probably, he'd finally kicked it. Russia severely doubted that Finland had moved anywhere; he would have heard. Finland was in no condition for stealth by this point. Russia's mouth twitched down into a frown. Where was…?

Oh. _Oh_.

Letting out a surprised laugh, Russia shook his head, suitably impressed, and focused in on a specific branch, careful to make his aim precise. He fired.

Finland tumbled down out of the tree, splattering blood all the way, and landed hard on his previously uninjured arm. Russia approached him carelessly, confident in his enemy's vulnerability. Ignoring the gasped-out wail the battered country emitted, Russia stopped down to grab a fistful of Finland's hair and lift his head. "What are you _made_ of?" he probed, not bothering to keep the amazement out of his voice. "You can get _so_ beat up and then hang out of a tree!" Finland mumbled something unintelligible, and Russia sighed, moving on to the real topic at hand. "Now can I have my apology, little Finland? Since I've beaten you?"

Finland spat in his face.

Russia released the blond locks from between his fingers, ignoring the squeak Finland let out as his head hit the ground. The bigger Nation wiped his face with his coat sleeve, pushed himself to his feet, wincing slightly—oh, right, he'd been shot—and then drew back his uninjured leg and gave the bloody body beneath him a swift kick to the chest.

Finland choked on whatever expression of anguish he'd been about to make.

Russia kneelt down beside him once more, lifted Finland's chin out of the small puddle of blood that had escaped from his mouth and then asked simply, "Well?" Finland whimpered something. "What was that?" Russia asked, leaning in closer to hear the small voice. He tightened his grip on the other Nation's jaw and ignored the streams of tears rolling down his enemy's face.

Finland's pained grimace twisted oh-so-slightly into a very small smile, not reaching past the edge of his lips but still _there_.

_You haven't won yet_.

Russia scowled and dropped him into back down into the stained snow. "Fine," he said gruffly. "Next time, then." It didn't matter, though, because Finland couldn't have heard him anyway. Russia stalked away, the little voice of reason in his head reminding him that he really ought to see a doctor about his leg and shoulder.

It didn't seem fair to him that a person should lose a battle and still come out the obvious victor.

-o-

_December 27, 1939  
__Suomussalmi, Finland_

The problem wasn't the snow.

Of course Finland liked snow, and given his rather fixed location in the world, he would have been in an awful lot of trouble if he didn't. It _snowed_ in Finland; it was kind of a thing. Besides, such weather was an excellent excuse to drink hot chocolate or curl up by the fire with a good book, and it also made for particularly beautiful Christmases more often than not.

Granted, that holiday was considerably more pleasant when not spent fending off a wretched Soviet counterattack and even _more_ pleasant when one had not recently been shot in the stomach and nearly bled to death on the battlefield. Sure, the wound had been old and healed by the twenty-fifth, but it had still been plenty sore, darn it.

That was very distinctly not mentioning the _really_ nasty beating Finland had taken on the 9th. Definitely not mentioning that. Those injuries _still_ hurt, which meant that they'd taken more of a mental toll than anything else. That battle had certainly been a morale killer, which was why it was very distinctly not being mentioned.

Stupid Russia, getting those gloves from Sweden all covered in blood…

Either way, Russia was going to pay for ruining Finland's Christmas. You didn't mess with Finland's Christmases. It wasn't done. It wasn't wise. Heck, it wasn't _sane_, although Russia had never been particularly famous for his mental stability.

The point is, however, that Finland didn't at all dislike snow, and was in fact quite fond of it. No, the snow wasn't the problem; Finland personally thought his country was particularly beautiful in the winter, not that he didn't feel the same way in the spring and the summer and the fall as well. The soft white shroud that had blanketed his lands was pretty and, despite the bitter cold, Finland was enjoying the picture the snow had created before him.

The problem was that the Russia's soldiers were ruining it.

Finland clucked his tongue and adjusted his grip on the rifle currently nestled in his comfortably gloved hands as he wondered where Russia had gotten off to now. He'd been scanning the enemy's troops for a while now, after having lost sight of his One True Opponent several minutes ago, but he hadn't had any luck relocating the man. For a big guy, Russia had a talent for disappearing pretty easily. Then he'd sneak right up on you, nasty little bugger that he was, and you'd never see him coming. Finland shivered a little bit as his eyes flickered quickly back and forth, still searching for his currently missing adversary. It wasn't too difficult to spot the Russian troops; their winter camouflage clothing was lacking, and it was never a good thing to be lacking in winter camouflage in the snow. Spotting Russia himself, though, was a different matter.

There was no way Finland was letting himself get dragged off to the side to fight one-on-one again. Not after the way the last fight had ended. There was _no way_.

Waking up from being dead in the middle of the woods, alone, unarmed, covered in snow, at least a pint of blood, and urine, hurting just about everywhere, and after spending the last few hours having nightmares about the guy you had to go into battle with soon…did not bode well for the prospects of an intentional rematch. At least not one that was quite so up-close and personal.

However, if it hadn't been for The Principle of the Thing, Finland would've really liked to apologize for some of his comments that last fight. There really was no excuse for saying something like that about such a nice girl as Ukraine, and Belarus was creepy as all get-out but certainly hadn't done anything to deserve…er…the things that had been said. Finland supposed that apologizing to the girls themselves would've been okay, just so long as he didn't say anything to _Russia_. That solution would have to do, he decided. He felt just _awful_.

Shaking his head to clear it of both guilty and terrifying thoughts, Finland turned his attention back to the battlefield. There was no sign of Russia, not anywhere. Finland couldn't see him, couldn't sense him, couldn't find a single trace. He had no idea where—well, okay; he knew exactly where Russia was.

He really had to do this, didn't he?

Finland took a deep breath, and then another, and then another. _Okay, you can do this, Finland. Just calm down. You'll be all right. _Ignoring the fact that he'd told himself the exact same thing last time, and look how that had ended. He'd come out of it with a teensy-weensy moral victory, but that paled in comparison to how badly Russia had beaten him. Specifically, Russia had emptied his gun into Finland, kicked him around, and then left him to die in a pool of his own bodily fluids. Russia had stripped him of any weaponry or ammo he'd been carrying and just…left. Well, honestly, that was a good thing, considering that Russia had a…reputation. Nations didn't torture, it just wasn't _done_, _ever_, by _anyone_. That said…nobody quite believed that Russia stuck to that rule the same quite as strictly as everybody else. So, really, Finland should've been glad that Russia hadn't taken him prisoner. Finland liked to tell himself that it was because Russia wanted to win his apology through an undeniable victory, the war itself. The other explanation was Russia didn't consider him enough of a threat to actually take prisoner.

Actually, that kind of offended Finland. In fact, it bothered him enough to make him gather up his nerves, clench the butt of his replacement pistol in his hand, and then boldly stalk off in the direction of the outskirts of Suomussalmi, where his and Russia's last confrontation had taken place.

Finland stuck his hand in his pocket, briefly brushing up against the discolored material inside of them, as though he wanted to make sure the gloves were still there, just in case. In case of what, though? Perhaps it didn't matter.

As he approached the site of his last loss, Finland had a sudden, urgent need to check and make sure that both his pistol and his rifle were loaded. They were, as it turned out. Not that he'd expected otherwise.

As he got even closer, he stopped abruptly and contemplated his go-to wartime option—sniping. That, however, seemed as though it would be cheating in a way, and wouldn't actually resolve anything.

Dang it.

Finland drew his pistol, steeled his nerves, and sucked in another breath. The sound of, "Hello, little Finland!" being called out through the trees made his heart sink. He should've known that Russia would know he was coming; that was what the Nation sense was for. Ruining any chance of sneak attacks.

Okay. Round two.

Finland stepped out into the open, allowing himself a good luck and Russia and vice versa. The bigger Nation fixed him immediately with a dangerous smile and Finland shuddered involuntarily. _Just _breathe_ Finny, you'll be alright._

"Hi," the Scandinavian country ventured warily, lowering neither his pistol nor his guard for a moment. He stared down his opponent with all of the confidence he could muster and, giving Russia no chance to distract him this time around, he fired his gun.

Russia darted out of the bullet's way, bringing his own gun up to shoot at the smaller Nation who was already poised to fire again. Finland dodged the first bullet, trying to close the ground between him and his opponent. Russia was a bigger target than he was, and Finland was faster as well. The advantage was his, Finland reminded himself, trying to boost his confidence a little more as he pulled the trigger. His shot only grazed Russia's cheek as the arctic Nation had begun to move at the same time as Finland's index finger had started to squeeze. Swearing under his breath, Finland dropped to the ground to evade Russia's second bullet, which he'd narrowly escaped catching with his brain, and then fired off a retaliatory shot.

Finland was about ninety percent sure that he'd managed to shoot Russia in the shoulder. The blood beginning to emerge from the man's coat certainly supported that theory, as did the lack of bullet anywhere else. That said, the theoretically injured Nation himself didn't seem to notice. Instead, the bigger man simply fired again at the Finn, taking him by surprise and catching him in a similar location.

Finland noticed.

"Crap!" he blurted, which seemed a silly choice of wording in retrospect, and he nearly dropped his pistol. _No_, Finland reminded himself sternly, _I've already lost one of these. I'd probably get in trouble if I can't keep hold of this one._ Switching the gun into the hand of his uninjured arm, Finland brought the weapon up to fire again, unintentionally moving in sync with his opponent. Finland quickly reconsidered his tactics, ducked beneath the bullet Russia sent his way, and barreled straight into the man's stomach.

Knocked entirely off balance, Russia tumbled to the ground, taking Finland with him, who was prepared enough for the fall to brace for impact. Russia's grip on his pistol faltered and the gun slipped from his fingers, landing a few inches away from his body in the snow. Russia growled something, low and furious, but Finland didn't seem to register what was most likely an insult of some sort. Instead, the blond scrambled to re-aim his pistol, moving quickly but not quickly enough. Russia jammed his knee up into the small of the other country's back, knocking the gun loose and getting a gasp out of Finland. Russia rolled to the side, knocking his enemy along with him, and grabbed for his gun.

Both Nations came out of the tumble with their weapons at the ready, shoving themselves up onto their knees and preparing to shoot. Not satisfied with a stalemate, Finland pulled the trigger. Russia moved out of the way as best as he could, hissing in pain as the projectile found its way into his upper chest. He released his gun, hand moving on pure instinct to touch the new wound. He let out a little snarl and, before Finland could shoot at him once more, he had swung the rifle from his back and slammed the barrel into the upside of his enemy's head.

Caught completely off guard, Finland collapsed into the snow. Russia scrambled to his feet before the smaller man could get his bearings, slamming one boot down onto Finland's chest. The blond gasped, expression twisting into an open-mouthed grimace as the first drops of blood from his head-injury began to trickle down into the snow. Russia's other foot applied pressure to his neighbor's fingers, making sure that the gun clutched within them was useless. Russia aimed his rifle and smiled. "Well, Finland? Can I have my apology now?"

Finland didn't answer, instead sucking in a deep breath to placate both his nerves and his respiratory system. He tested his fingers experimentally. No good; in fact, Russia's foot ground his hand further down into the ground as a response to the escape attempt. "Ow," Finland mumbled unhappily. He glanced around, spied Russia's relinquished pistol, and did a bit of measuring in his head. He peeked back up at Russia, who was waiting expectantly. "About that," Finland told Russia slowly. "Listen, I said some really horrible things about you and your sisters." Without breaking the cadence of his speech, Finland snaked out his free hand, wrapped his fingers around the fallen pistol, and craned his head out of the way of the bullet that Russia had instinctively fired, managing not to die. He fired, hoping that he'd hit something, given that he hadn't had the time to look where he was shooting. He didn't get the reaction that he was hoping for and took it as an unfortunate "no," but he was satisfied with the result of Russia stepping to the side, removing his heel from Finland's chest in the process. The blond seized the opportunity, twisting upright to pull the trigger twice in rapid succession, catching Russia in the chest with both bullets.

The larger Nation fell back, scattering the snow as he hit the ground. Finland staggered to his feet, breathing deeply. He tightened his grip on Russia's pistol, aimed, and fired again, this time hitting Russia in the head. Just a precaution.

"Okay," he said aloud, trying to rid his voice of the shakes that currently riddled it. "That's done, then." He cleared his throat, looked around a bit awkwardly, and then cracked a smile. "There now. That wasn't so bad, was it Finland?" Another deep breath. Finland brushed the snow from his pants with the backs of his hands, tucked own gun away into its holster, and headed back to his troops to see how the rest of the battle was going, although he already really knew. "That went well, didn't it?"

-o-

_December 28, 1939  
__Kunlun Pass, China_

Quite frankly, this war was getting kind of old.

It wasn't so much that Japan didn't want to fight it. He wanted to. War wasn't _fun_, but he had to teach China his place, and if this war was the way to do that, then Japan couldn't exactly complain about it all that much, now could he? The problem wasn't that Japan didn't want to fight; the problem was that China's resistance was getting a bit annoying, and Japan wished that China would just _give up_ already. Couldn't he see that resistance was only delaying the inevitable, that he didn't have a chance?

Clearly he couldn't see that, or if he could, he was just deluding himself into thinking that it wasn't true. Either way, Japan was getting annoyed with it.

And so, in order to force China to see reason and accept reality, Japan was currently in the process of cutting off China's supply route from Vietnam. Maybe a lack of supplies would accomplish what pain, defeat, and weapons of mass destruction couldn't. And even if it didn't make China see reason, it would at least hinder his war effort. Either he'd catch on to the fact that he couldn't win when his supply route was cut off, or, failing that, he'd catch on when Japan cut China off from the outside world and ultimately defeated him once and for all.

China could be as stubborn as he wanted, but it wouldn't save him. He _would_ fall, sooner or later. Stubbornness would only delay the inevitable and make the end of the war that much more painful for him, between the desperation of fighting a battle he knew he had no chance of winning and the knowledge that he was completely alone, with no hope of anyone coming to save him.

Japan didn't _want_ to see China go through that. He had tried to get China to see reason before it came to that. But he had given him the chance to surrender. He had given him _several_ chances to surrender. And yet China still stubbornly refused to give up. It was _his_ fault that the war was still going on, that his people were still dying, that he was in pain.

After all, if China _really_ wanted to be spared the pain of fighting a losing battle and ultimately being defeated, he would have surrendered when Japan gave him the chance. China knew what he was getting himself into, and it wasn't Japan's fault that China wouldn't take the easy way out and that Japan would have to hurt him.

China was fighting him tooth and nail for every inch of ground, but that didn't worry Japan all that much (how much it _annoyed_ him, however, was another story) because he was already quite certain that he would win. China didn't seem_ quite_ as certain of Japan's victory as Japan was, but he still looked pretty darn worried, not to mention in more than a little pain, and why shouldn't he? He was _losing_ and while he might have been in denial about the fact that he had no chance in the war, he wasn't quite so blind to the fact that he was _very_ unlikely to win this battle. He was wounded, for starters, his uniform liberally stained with blood and dirt; his right ankle had been twisted and he was limping; his lower lip had been split open during Japan's earlier attempts at persuading him to surrender, and his face had a streak of dirt across it where China had tried to wipe the blood away with the sleeve of his uniform. Japan hadn't expected China to manage to fight and claw his way to his gun and continue the battle, but, much to his annoyance, China had managed it, albeit somewhat hindered by his newly twisted ankle and the combined pain of a split lip, a matching set of black eyes, the assorted scrapes and bruises China had gathered in the course of being thrown to the ground and kicked in the ribs a time or two, and, of course, the gunshot wound to the arm only inches from the wrist that had caused China's grip on his gun to loosen enough for it to fall to the ground, giving Japan the chance to kick it away from him and do his best to _persuade_ his self-proclaimed brother to use his good hand to pull out a white flag and make like Italy.

Strictly speaking, it hadn't been completely necessary to force China to surrender; Japan could have just put a bullet in China's head right then and there. But while a victory was going to be nice, forcing China to surrender the battle would have been better. Losing the battle would certainly mess with China, but being forced to surrender? _That_ would do quite a number on China's morale, particularly in a major battle such as this, and Japan was very interested in wreaking havoc on China's morale. All in the interest of proving to the older Nation that resistance was futile, of course. All for very practical, functional purposes, and not because Japan was so frustrated by China's stubbornness that he wanted to see China miserable and scared and broken as revenge.

Unfortunately, wreaking havoc on China's morale wasn't quite as easy to do when China managed to get ahold of his gun once more and force himself to ignore the pain in his ankle and stand up and keep fighting.

Japan was not going to bother with the "last chance to surrender" thing the next time around, though. The next time he had China at his mercy, he'd put a bullet in the older Nation's head and drag him off to somewhere away from the fighting. Somewhere where Japan would be able to give China his undivided attention. And, for that matter, where China wouldn't have a chance to try and fight his way out, where China could do nothing as Japan tore China's morale to shreds until there was no way the older Nation would ever be able to put it back together.

(Besides, even if it wasn't as humbling as surrendering, knowing he'd tried his best but ultimately failed would still be quite the humbling experience for China, and in Japan's opinion, China could use a few more humbling experiences in his life. Japan was more than willing to help him out in that area.)

For a brief moment, the corners of Japan's mouth twitched up into something that was either a smile or a smirk. China certainly noticed the change in expression, and appeared less than comfortable with it, somewhat worried by the prospect of finding out what had caused it. China's grip on his gun tightened until his knuckles were white. Good, he was nervous.

China took a breath, got his too-tight grip on his weapon back under control, and returned to his increasingly desperate attempts at keeping his supply route open without getting himself killed. Japan continued his increasingly confident attempts at ensuring that China failed in his goals.

His next bullet hit China's arm, the second bullet today to do so, and China let out an interesting combination of a scream, a yelp, and a thoroughly miserable sounding whimper as he stumbled and nearly collapsed. The blood loss was taking its toll. Soon, China would be forced to either surrender or retreat. That is, if he managed to avoid getting killed.

Japan smiled again.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Historical Jargon (You guys, Warsaw's writing these for once, so they'll probably be really funky):

-The Battle of Suomussalmi was a really neat little fight between Russia and Finland. Well, not really little, 'cause it lasted, like, a month but WHATEVER. Anyway, despite being way outnumbered by Russia's troops, Finland still managed to give him a good, sound butt-kicking, which gave him access to the defeated Soviet troops' weaponry and also a nice morale boost, both of which did him a lot of good. Yay, Finland! A winner is you! Seriously, guys, Wikipedia has a nice list of all the Soviet fails in this battle.

-The Battle of Kunlun Pass was, um, a fight between Japan and China. See, Japan was all like, "Bwahaha, I'm gonna cut your supply lines and stuff!" And China was like, "Aw, hell no!" So they fought. And, um, Japan captured Kunlun Pass and fortified the high grounds around it so that China had a nasty time trying to take it and couldn't really keep hold of it if he did. And, um, China tried this frontal assault on the 28th, but it failed, and he took a lot of casualties. And that's bad. For China. Not Japan. Er. How does Vilnius make these things sound intelligent at all?! I'm never doing them again!

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: I learned something valuable tonight: when I get sleep deprived, I inexplicably lose the ability to use capital letters. Seriously, for some reason, I keep forgetting to capitalize things. I don't know why. Then again, Warsaw has been writing out her punctuation on Skype all night, so apparently I'm not the only one who types weirdly when tired. (We work on stuff over Skype's chat/messaging thing because my college is in a different state than her high school, and our computers hate us and tend to mess up our webcams.) Seriously, she's been her sentences with "exclamation point" or "question mark." It's _weird_.

Warsaw's Note: We (or at least I) had such horrible, busy weeks that we had to write this whole chapter Sunday evening, which is why we're about two hours late on the posting thing. And then I had to do the history notes because Vilnius had homework, and I obviously suck at giving straight facts. You guys, we love you so much that we did this in a few sleep-deprived hours (and it shows) just for you. I have had so much sugary tea that I don't even know where I **am** anymore. But still, we're only a little late. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night! POSTING EVERY SUNDAY! I'm so tired.

**Did we mention that we love you, dear readers and especially dear reviewers? Because we do. So p****lease review (again, if applicable). It would make up for all the sleep that we didn't get tonight. Just one little review?**

Vilnius's Note Number Two: Okay, I went back and switched the order of the scenes so that the events of December 27 now come _before_ December 28 instead of after. I have no idea how we didn't notice that we put the scenes out of order. Sorry about that little bit of weirdness.


	9. Cracks in the Armor

_We still don't own Hetalia. Vanishing off the face of the planet for a week has not changed that.  
_

_Speaking of vanishing off the face of the planet for a week, we are SO SORRY for not updating last week. Unfortunately, we had four days without internet, lots of school related drama, and a sick Warsaw. Here's chapter nine, a week late. Enjoy!_

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Cracks in the Armor**

_December 29, 1939  
__Kunlun Pass, China_

China adjusted his grip on the rifle clenched in his right hand and scowled, dissatisfied. He tried again, shifting more of the gun's weight toward his thumb, but the result of this attempt evidently displeased him as well, because his frown grew even more pronounced. Brows furrowed more from frustration than from any superb focus, China released an irate sigh and tried moving the weapon to one more position. No luck. Drat. Counting to ten in his head as patiently as he could, China lowered his rifle. There was no way he was going to get anywhere using this thing one-handed, was there?

His desire to invoke such an unlikely action movie cliché made a little more sense in context, stemming from one of his recent injuries: the bullets that Japan had managed to put in his arm the day before. Among other unpleasant wounds. Having been shot in the upper arm, _twice_, however, made it a bit more difficult to handle his preferred gun. The 98K was unfortunately hostile toward his hopes of letting his arm heal up by using it as little as possible. At this rate, he'd probably reopen the wound before the day was done. Oh well. That was just the way things were going to have to go, then. Fingers crossed, right?

China swung the rifle up to catch the barrel with his left hand, wincing as the weight of the gun landing hard in his waiting palm jerked his injured arm down. He gave the bandages—and there were a lot of them, if he was looking at his entire body and being honest with himself—one last worried look, reminded of the Mustard Gas-Hospital Incident. Yes, he had learned his lesson about charging into battle half-dead. No, he was not going to sit this one out. He wasn't even half-dead anyway. Just really beat up and about a _quarter_ dead, concussion notwithstanding. Good enough.

China yawned. Maneuvers instigated at first light were the very worst kind, he lamented silently. Nobody liked getting up before the birds just to charge some bad guys with your heavy guns. It was unpleasant, to say the least. Not that China had really had to get up at all, since he'd never lain down to begin with. Too busy thinking and planning and preparing and being in pain, all of which made for a particularly restless Nation. China blinked away his exhaustion, for the time being anyway. It was better, he reasoned, to get the battle over and done with. The sooner China ejected the Japanese soldiers from his territory, after all, the sooner he could go home, try and sort things out with his family, and hopefully put an end to his ridiculous civil war, which was wearing China out more than he cared to admit. But all that in due time. First things first, China reminded himself. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, it was vital that this irritatingly-timed strike succeed. He had to retake the high grounds around Kunlun Pass so that his troops could get ahold of the pass itself without getting ganked by the Imperial Japanese Army before they managed any of their objectives.

China glared at his bandaged arm, yawned one more time, and sighed. This was going to _suck_, wasn't it?

Yes. Yes, it was definitely going to suck. But unfortunately, it was a necessary evil and this was neither the time nor the place to complain about it. Time to get to work.

China headed out to battle, and it wasn't long before he found himself facing off against Japan, who was significantly less injured than he was, and significantly more confident because of this.

Well, China would just have to change that, wouldn't he?

He shot at Japan, who was unfortunately quick enough to get out of the way. Japan looked pretty much the same as he'd been looking since the war had started: always looking like he considered himself so superior to everyone else, particularly China. Always annoyed, as if this whole conflict was _China's_ fault instead of his. China still cared about Japan, of course; after all, Japan was his brother. But just because they were brothers didn't mean that China had to like Japan's new attitude. Quite honestly, it was a bit infuriating to have Japan always looking down on him, always acting like China was just a child having a temper tantrum and refusing to see reason, when really it was closer to the other way around.

China didn't want to see Japan hurt. But at the same time, whenever Japan looked at him like this, China found himself wanting to punch Japan in the face a time or two to make the younger Nation look just a little less condescending.

Of course, since there was currently a battle going on, punching Japan in the face (or maybe just shooting him a time or two) was actually desired outcome anyway, so…

China shot at Japan some more.

Japan shot back, obviously, but China had been expecting that to happen—it was, after all, the logical response to being shot at—and dodged, and as a result, the bullet only grazed China's arm (_again_; this was getting annoying) instead of catching him in the chest. China's bullet had had a similar effect on Japan, although it had hit the younger Nation's shoulder instead of his arm. (China couldn't help but notice that, despite Japan's annoying superiority complex, it was China who had done the most damage.)

Japan's expression became even more like that of a parent dealing with a stubborn and unruly child as he continued to try and kill his older brother to prove whatever it was that he was trying to prove. China's expression, meanwhile, just became a lot more annoyed and frustrated with having received _another_ injury to his arm. There might have been just a tiny bit of smugness mixed in there too; he _had_ gotten in the better shot, after all. Looks like Japan wasn't as superior as he liked to think he was.

And just like that, China and Japan continued to try and kill each other for the next few hours.

-o-

_January 27, 1940  
Berlin, Germany_

After their first secret meeting had gotten a little too loud to stay secret, Team Germany had set to work finding another way to keep Poland out of their meetings. The idea they'd finally settled on was to give Poland twice the usual amount of work to do so that he wouldn't have time to try and eavesdrop. It looked pretty good on paper. Poland couldn't eavesdrop if he was doing chores elsewhere in the house. Simple as that.

When Austria had handed Poland a long list of chores to get done by the end of the day, however, it took Poland about six seconds to find the flaw in Team Germany's plan: it relied on the extra chores to keep Poland busy, and Poland simply had no intention of _doing_ the extra chores. Or any chores at all, for that matter. (Except maybe washing the laundry. He needed clean clothes too, after all.) Of course, if Poland didn't do his chores, Germany would get ticked off, but Poland didn't really care about that either. He could handle whatever punishment Germany came up with, and he had much more important things to do than meaningless chores. If Team Germany was going to shut themselves in the conference room all day, then that was just a colossal moment of idiocy on their side of the scoreboard, and Poland sure wasn't going to let an opportunity like that go to waste.

Well, Poland did have to admit that Team Germany's plan did _technically_ accomplish its objectives. Eavesdropping on the meeting _was_ still pretty much out of the question; Germany would no doubt post Austria at the door to the conference room again. Poland wasn't allowed in any of the rooms in the hall: Germany's office was locked, as was the room housing his files and records, the conference room would be in use, the room housing Austria's piano wasn't _technically_ off limits, but Austria would have gone ballistic if he'd gone in there, and while he technically wasn't banned from the room containing medical equipment and supplies, Austria wasn't going to let him in there without a reason. In short, if Austria saw Poland anywhere in the hall, Team Germany would know what he was up to, and they wouldn't be pleased.

So eavesdropping wouldn't work; Poland wouldn't get anywhere near the conference room. Trying anyway would just be a waste of time and effort, and it would probably cause more problems than it would solve. Instead, Poland had a different idea: take advantage of the fact that Team Germany was too busy with their meeting to properly supervise him. Slipping a letter into the mail was still a possibility, as was breaking into Prussia's office, which wasn't in the same hall as the conference room, and was therefore outside of Austria's surveillance zone.

Poland _was_ a little bit disappointed about not getting to listen in on Team Germany's secret meeting, and not just for the obvious 'spying on the enemy' reasons. He had to be missing out on some pretty interesting stuff. After all, the day had started when he was awoken by Austria throwing a hissy fit over Gilbird apparently pecking his head and pulling on Mariazell one too many times. He'd demanded that the bird be left out of the upcoming meeting, which hadn't gone over well with Prussia, who had loudly insisted that Gilbird was a vital part of the team. Unfortunately, Poland didn't gt to hear who'd won the argument, because Germany had either shut the two of them up, or at least made them use their inside voices.

Just after breakfast, Prussia had left to get the official maps that Team Germany would need for their meeting. He'd returned much sooner than anyone had expected. As Poland was finishing washing the breakfast dishes and cleaning the kitchen (another chore he had deemed acceptable, since clean dishes were also kind of important, not to mention there was nothing significant happening yet anyway), he'd overheard another interesting snippet of conversation that made him think that the meeting was practically guaranteed to be interesting: Prussia had returned not with official maps, but rather with travel guides, explaining that since they only had a few hours to plan, he hadn't had time to go get official military maps, so they would have to be satisfied with the maps in the travel guides that he'd picked up at the bookstore right by the house if they wanted to finish on time. Needless to say, this had sparked yet another argument.

Poland, meanwhile, found himself wondering how on Earth he'd ever lost to these idiots. _Especially_ if they intended to plan a war using maps found in a travel guide.

Well, if they wanted to screw up their own planning process, Poland sure wasn't going to stop them. Instead, he waited several minutes for Team Germany to get started on their meeting, then went upstairs to his bedroom and retrieved an envelope from the pocket of the jacket hanging in the closet. He tucked it into his pants pocket and crept back downstairs, depositing the envelope into the middle of the small stack of to-be-sent mail on the table in the foyer. The envelope was unlikely to catch anyone's attention at first glance: the handwriting looked like Germany's (Poland had spent several hours practicing copying it from an old envelope he'd taken out of the trash when Germany wasn't looking) and it was addressed to another Nation rather than an unknown civilian address. An envelope addressed in Germany's handwriting to England was unlikely to raise anyone's suspicions on first glance, and it was unlikely that anyone was going to look very closely through the mail before sending it anyway.

That done, Poland grabbed a broom and dragged it behind him as he headed to Prussia's office. He picked the lock with the hairpins he'd stolen from Hungary's room when he'd borrowed her skirt. (He still could have sworn he'd asked about the skirt, but whatever.)The lock clicked open, and Poland let himself into the room, closing the door behind him.

The walls of Prussia's office were mostly taken up by shelves containing the somewhat ridiculous number of diaries he'd filled up and somehow managed to hang onto over the years. The only furniture in the room was a desk and a chair against the far wall. Poland quickly looked over the contents of the desk, but found only some blank paper, a couple of pencils, an assortment of _kriegsspiel_ game pieces and maps, and his personal favorite, a pillow and blanket stowed under the desk for emergency napping. Unfortunately, there was nothing actually helpful; it would appear that Prussia didn't keep anything important in his office. Poland briefly considered looking through the diaries, but decided against it on the grounds that it would take far too long. Searching Team Germany's rooms would take much less time and was much more likely to get results.

Poland slipped out of Prussia's office, taking the broom with him. He dragged it along behind him on the way to the stairs. As he passed the hall where Germany's meeting was taking place, Austria, sitting in a chair in the doorway, gave him a _Look_. "Poland, that doesn't look like sweeping," he called.

Poland glared at him, went back to the far wall of the living room, and tried walking by the hall again, this time actually _using_ the broom. Austria looked annoyingly smug about this, so Poland took the opportunity to send dust flying everywhere the instant he was out of Austria's field of vision. He then proceeded up the stairs, still dragging the broom behind him, and headed for Germany's room, having decided that the most important stuff was likely to be in there.

Things didn't go quite as planned, however. The instant he opened Germany's bedroom door, there was the sound of a bird's chirp from right behind him. Poland turned to see Gilbird sitting on the railing, chirping like there was no tomorrow. This continued for several seconds before Gilbird took off into the living room, still chirping like mad.

Great. Just great. They'd posted the bird as lookout. Which, in retrospect, did actually make Gilbird an important member of Team Germany. Looks like Prussia was right after all.

Poland bolted for the stairs before anyone could inquire about the cause of Gilbird's chirping fit. He clearly wasn't the only one who'd bolted for the stairs, though, because when he got there, Team Germany was waiting for him at the bottom.

Oh, this was going to _suck_.

"I was totally just sweeping," Poland said, looking around for an escape route and finding none, unless he wanted to jump over the railing into the living room. He wasn't too big on that plan, particularly because it wouldn't help much; he'd only be a few seconds ahead of Team Germany. Poland's injuries from the war still hadn't healed completely; he'd need more than a couple seconds head start to make up for that.

"Whose room were you trying to sneak into?" Prussia asked conversationally. _Translation: you're a really bad liar._

"Nobody's," Poland said, wondering if it would be worth it to jump over the railing anyway. "Seriously, guys, I was just doing my chores."

Germany started up the stairs, and now Poland really started considering jumping over the railing. It still wouldn't help, though: Prussia, Austria, and Hungary were still close enough to catch him if he tried that. "Empty your pockets," Germany snapped.

"I don't have anyth—"

"_Now_."

Poland sighed and pulled the hairpins out of his pocket, handing them over to Germany when the latter reached the top of the stairs. It wasn't worth getting in a four-against-one fight over a couple of hairpins.

"Anything else?" Germany asked. Poland shook his head and turned his pockets inside-out to prove it. "Good." Germany seized Poland by the arm and dragged him down the hall.

"Like, what are you doing?" Poland demanded. "Let me go!" He tried to pull out of Germany's grip, without success.

"You're going to spend the rest of the day in your room, rethinking your priorities," Germany informed him. "Think about whether it's really worth it to fight a battle you know you can't win."

Poland scoffed at this. "I already know the answer to that."

"If you were trying to break into my room, you clearly don't have the _right_ answer. Now I'm going to give you an extra day to get your priorities straight, since the time it took you to recover from the war apparently wasn't enough. And this time, you won't have anyone interrupting your thinking by bringing you lunch or dinner."

"Overreaction much?" Poland snorted. "Come on, I didn't even get inside."

They reached Poland's room. Germany opened the door and shoved him inside, then shut it. A second later, the key turned in the lock. "Stay quiet, or I might just leave you in there another day."

Poland glared daggers at the door, kicked it, then stormed across the room and flopped down onto the bed, kicking off his shoes and flinging them across the room. He buried his face in the pillow and groaned.

If locking him in his room and not letting him eat was the _first_ punishment Germany thought of, even before Poland did anything to _really_ tick him off, this was going to be a _very_ long imprisonment.

-o-

_February 15, 1940  
__Summa, Finland_

Russia was in an incredibly good mood. In fact, his mood was nearly perfect. Only _nearly_, though, because Finland was still annoying and hadn't yet apologized for what he'd said about Belarus and Ukraine. Still, even with that factored in, Russia's mood was pretty darn _close_ to perfect. After all, he was just about to break through Finland's Mannerheim Line and do some serious damage to Finland's defensive efforts.

There was no question of if Russia would break though the line anymore, not from his side or from Finland's side. It was barely even a question of when he'd break through the line; after all, Finland's forces were already retreating. Not that this meant that Finland himself wasn't staying back and putting up as much resistance as possible until the absolute last second. Finland wasn't going anywhere until he had no choice but to run for it, and Russia was okay with that. Russia didn't mind Finland staying behind and fighting. In fact, he was looking forward to it. Not because he was looking forward to the actual _fighting_—that part was still annoying—but rather, because he was going to get to see the look on Finland's face when Russia's forces finally broke through Finland's precious Mannerheim Line. In fact, Russia was looking forward to that almost as much as he was looking forward to Finland's apology.

Of course, first Russia would have to actually defeat Finland, or at least do a decent amount of damage, but that wouldn't be _too _difficult.

Finland, meanwhile, was clearly intending to get in as much damage as possible before he was forced to make a run for it, and he was annoyingly good at doing that damage; he fired off a shot at Russia and even though Russia saw it coming, he didn't get out of the way _quite_ fast enough. It wasn't much more than a graze, but it still only encouraged Finland to shoot at Russia some more. Being shot at encouraged Russia to shoot back, and just like that, the violence continued.

"Shouldn't you be retreating with your forces, little Finland?" Russia asked as he came _so close_ to shooting Finland in the chest. "You know you can't win here."

Finland's answer would have nailed Russia right in the head had Russia not ducked just in time, having been keeping an eye on Finland's trigger finger so he could start to move the instant it did.

"All of your soldiers are running away," Russia continued as if he hadn't almost been shot in the head. "Shouldn't you join them?"

"I'm not going anywhere until I put a bullet in your head," Finland spat, and tried once more to do just that. He came worryingly close.

"But if you wait too long, you'll miss your chance to get away and you'll be trapped here," Russia pointed out helpfully, smiling at Finland. Finland glared back, said nothing, and shot Russia in the shoulder before Russia was able to get out of the way.

Well that was irritating.

Russia switched his pistol to his other hand and fired back at his annoying little enemy, and this time he was rewarded with a yelp and the sight of a bloodstain starting to spread onto Finland's uniform. It wasn't a very serious wound, but at least it was better than nothing. Finland returned fire, but Russia had seen it coming, dodged, and fired back at Finland once more, this time managing to hit him in the stomach.

Finland muttered something under his breath that Russia couldn't quite make out, but which he could assume from the context was not about fluffy bunnies and rainbows. He fired back at Russia, but missed.

"You're really hurt by now, aren't you?" Russia asked in the most patronizing way possible. "Between this fight and all the other times we've fought in the past few days? Usually your aim is much better than this. Are you getting tired, little Finland? You should just give up; you know it's not going to be long until my forces break through your line."

"We'll see about that," Finland spat, shooting at Russia.

Russia dodged and gave Finland a smile. "I think you're out of bullets now," he pointed out sweetly. "It looks like you won't be able to put a bullet in my head after all. That's too bad. Maybe you'll have better luck next time around." He paused and looked around. "Oh, look at that, my forces just broke through your Mannerheim Line!" Russia announced gleefully. "Just like I told you they would!"

Finland's defiant expression crumbled as he realized that Russia was right. The fire in his eyes was ever so briefly replaced by hopelessness and defeat and more than a little nervousness. It only lasted a second before the defiant expression returned, but for Russia, it made the whole battle worthwhile.

"You haven't won yet," Finland snarled, grabbing a glass bottle of flammable liquids from where it had been tucked under his belt. He threw it at Russia, and as the bottle shattered upon impact with the ground just in front of the arctic Nation, it ignited.

Of course, a Molotov Cocktail doesn't do much damage when it hits nothing but the ground, but one thing it does do is provide a distraction. While Russia was busy watching the pretty fire (well, _avoiding_ the pretty fire and shattered glass), Finland bolted.

Russia didn't mind. He'd catch up to the annoying little bugger soon enough, now that Finland's Mannerheim Line was no longer in his way.

-o-

_February 20, 1940_  
_Berlin, Germany_

_We open on a hail of gunfire._

_But Poland had expected as much. After all, it would've been a bit random for the Germans to drop those "surrender or die" leaflets if they didn't plan on following it up, wouldn't it? Poland had taken the time to flip through one of them. It had been the usual blah, blah, _blah_: most of your country is already in our hands, surrender is your only option, resistance is futile. The blond Nation had cracked a smile at the last part. He always liked it when people claimed that resistance was futile, because that meant that he got to prove them wrong. Also, it sounded cheesy, and cheesy thing were funny._

_The leaflets had been a good enough indication of why Poland's instincts had led him to this town. Good, yes, but mostly unnecessary. Wizna and the surrounding area's defenses guarded some rivers Germany would've liked to cross, protected some positions further south that Germany would've liked to take, covered some roads Germany would've liked to have access to, and overall it was a well-fortified piece of land. Just the kind that screamed, "Come and get me if you dare, puny_ _men of foreign lands!" And, really now, who could resist such a call to arms as a village calling them puny, even if it was only a weird bit of literary personification?_

_There were sixteen bunkers. They'd planned for thirty, but Germany hadn't given them enough time. Six were concrete and reinforced with steel and armed with machine guns and artillery. Two were just concrete and had only machine guns for defenses. The others: pillboxes, mostly protected by sandbags and earthworks. There were trenches and barbed wire and landmines. Poland had been told that there were about 720 men defending the line._

_They would be badly outnumbered._

_About fifty-eight to one, as it turned out._

_When the Germans attacked Wizna, they pulled out a double whammy with their artillery and air forces. Poland set his jaw, aimed, and fired. Repeated. There, see? Hail of gunfire. Told you it was a thing. Going through the motions of war, Poland found, was best done with a certain level of detachment. You had to be _there_ enough to know where to aim, what was going on, how you could help, and how not to lose yourself in it. But, on the other hand, you had to keep yourself far away_ _enough that you didn't think about how the boy next to you was probably praying that he might live, and that you were very likely going to die or get captured, and that the man you'd just shot had a mother who would never straighten her son's tie and wave him off to work again._

_"Nice shot," breathed the curly-haired, scrawny little twig of a kid crouched beside Poland._

_The Nation clicked his tongue._ Go home._ "Thank Celestia." he said, briefly holding up his Browning wz. 1928 to the boy's line of sight. The boy blinked, no doubt wondering what on earth a Celestia was. Poland, sighed, shook his head, and then yelped as a bullet made contact with his upper arm. The boy, eyes the size of dinner plates, let out a gasp. Poland's reaction was less shocked. "Lucky shot, Germany!" he yelled out into the fray, aiming his words at nowhere in particular._

_If a Nation got shot during a battle, chances were high that another personification was to blame. They aimed specifically for one other, after all. That, and then there was the strange magic, or whatever it was, that governed the ways they healed and found the battles they needed to be at. Nobody could claim to understand it fully. There were a lot of things that Nations didn't know about themselves. The point was, however, that countries could always find one another in a fight. Probably because their clash was the core of the chaos going on around them. It was neither impossible nor at all unheard of for a Nation to be shot by a human, but it sure didn't happen as often._

_Poland clenched his teeth, ducked a little lower in hopes that he wouldn't get a bullet in the brain while trying to wrap up his arm, and produced a roll of gauze from beneath his jacket. Holding it in place with his teeth, he forced up his sleeve wound a portion of the roll around his arm until he was satisfied, almost viciously tore the material, and twisted the loose ends underneath, ignoring all of the sticky, yucky blood. He made a face. Eh, it would do for now, anyway. Poland glanced at the kid next to him. "That's not how you do that. Don't copy me, okay? At least, like, wash it out first." He grinned jauntily, switched the hand his gun was in, and went back to work, trying to keep the pain of his face. Germany was so getting a bullet in the balls. Ugh, and Poland had wasted his hot chocolate on him._

_Hot chocolate, hmm? Poland could've done with a cup. At least it wasn't wet-chilly that day, but then, it had been a really dry season, which was why they hadn't been able to break the dams and flooded the area. Still though, hot chocolate… Trying to_ imagine _the taste into his mouth, Poland scanned the area for Germany. Nations were always up front, after all. Something splattered against the side of Poland's face. He brushed a bit of it from his eye absently, focusing on his enemy. Actually, he realized, it could've been Austria or Prussia who'd shot him. He bit his lip and noted that he wouldn't have minded either, although he probably would've preferred to shoot Prussia if he was given the choice._

_The obnoxious Nation's laugh wormed its way into Poland's mind and proceeded to play itself on repeat for the next several minutes. It was like when you got "It's a Small World" or the Pink Panther theme stuck in your head, it just_ _wouldn't_ go away_. Only this was worse, because this wasn't catchy, it was a horrible onslaught of-_

_Poland gagged suddenly, covering his nose with his hand for a moment before refocusing his rifle. Ah-hah! So it _was _Germany after all. He wondered where he ought to aim, eventually settling for somewhere he had a decent chance of hitting. He fired, Germany turning out of the bullet's path just in time for it to miss him by, apparently needing to yell at someone behind him. As the bullet whizzed past him, the invading Nation jerked his head forward in shock. Poland clicked his tongue, dissatisfied, and readied himself for another try. Germany was so getting… Poland stiffened. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced down at his hand. The corners of his lips twitched. He glanced down at the boy next to him, swallowed, and slowly wiped the rest of the brain matter off of his face with the back of his sleeve._

_719_.

Poland woke up as a loud, particularly vulgar swear tore out of his throat. He tripped out of bed, stumbled into the wall closest to the door, and fought desperately with the doorknob, trying to get the _stupid thing_ to _open_. Finally succeeding in his frantic escape, he pressed up against the railing around the opening in the floor above the living room. Dragging himself along the rail, he headed toward the bathroom as quickly as he could without making himself feel any sicker.

"Poland, what the _hell_ are you doing?" Germany rounded the corner, obviously furious at having been woken up at what was likely an early hour during a good night's sleep.

Poland opened his mouth to say something, but his body seemed to have a different idea of how the conversation ought to go, and the boy lurched forward, tumbled to his knees, and vomited up a massive mouthful of the contents of his stomach all over the carpet.

"Ah. That. I see." Germany deadpanned, kneeling down beside the distressed Nation. He pulled Poland's hair out of the line of fire with a sigh, his stomach obviously churning at the sight of the usually-blond locks that he had been too late to save, careful not to touch their vomit-coated tips.

Poland gagged out another mouthful and gave a muffled sob that fractured between retches. Tears began to drip down into the newly-formed pool on the floor as Poland choked out a loud, unidentifiable sound and gasped for air.

"Are you finished?" Germany asked hopefully.

"Ngh," said Poland, which really could've gone either way. His eyes widened and he reached up a vomit-splattered hand and clawed at the side of his face.

"Don't do that!" Germany snapped, grabbing hold of Poland's hand. His face contorted into a look of disgust when he remembered what was _on_ the hand. "Great."

Poland tried to pull his fingers away from Germany's grip, using the other hand in the meantime. "Get it off!" he shrieked as the other Nation grabbed hold of that hand, too.

"Poland, calm down before you hurt yourself!"

"Germany, what are you doing to him?" a shrill voice demanded. Germany looked up as Hungary stormed toward him, dragging Austria, who may very well have still been asleep, by the arm behind her.

"You look at this and blame me?" Germany spluttered, still trying to hold down the hysterical Poland. "Why not Austria? He cooked!"

Hungary rolled her eyes and knelt down beside them. "Let go of him," she ordered, prying Germany's hands off of Poland's.

"Oh, fantastic idea-," Germany managed before Poland resumed scratching his skin, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.

"Crap, never mind." Hungary gently pulled Poland's hands away from his face. "Sweetie, you need to stop that now." Poland stared at her blankly. "Er…that'll work." She glanced over her shoulder at Austria, who was flopped over the railing. "Honey, can you get me something to clean this up with?"

Austria gave her a Look. "What? Hungary, _ew_." Ah, so he was awake then.

Hungary groaned. "I never said you had to clean it up." This was sufficient enough to get Austria to trudge off unhappily in search of cleaning supplies. She turned back to Poland. "Are you feeling better now?" He nodded slightly. "Good."

"Is it still there?" Hungary blinked at him, glanced down at the puddle on the carpet, and opened her mouth to respond, but Poland sat back, taking a deep breath, and cut her off. " Not that. You'd know." He wiped his face with the back of his hand anyway and made a face when he saw what was there. "Oh, totally gross."

"It's in your hair, too." Germany offered helpfully.

"What? No!" Poland wailed, flailing his arms wildly, as if it could've somehow helped, causing the two other Nations to need to dodge. Germany had no idea how Prussia was still asleep.

"Why is he making so much noise?" Austria moaned, returning with the results of his epic quest. "Here," he added, shoving the cleaning supplies at Germany. "I don't _do_ vomit."

"No, you don't do much of anything, do you?" the blond countered grumpily, taking the paper towels and carpet spray.

Austria frowned at him and opened his mouth to say something haughtily back. Hungary interrupted with, "Go back to bed, Austria," pointedly.

"Finally." the brunette plodded off towards his bedroom.

"Ugh, aristocrats." Hungary in a blatant stage whisper.

"I heard that."

"You were meant to!"

"There's no such thing as love at midnight, is there?" Germany noted quietly to Poland, who shrugged in response. Hungary gave him the same withering look she'd given Austria's back before snatching the supplies and getting to work. Germany helped Poland to his feet. "You should wash up."

"I'm, like, all vomity." Poland agreed sadly, and Germany wondered why in the world he'd felt that necessary to say out loud as he helped the smaller Nation toward the bathroom.

"Feel like sharing what all of this was about?"

Poland made another face. "Nightmare."

"About?"

"Wizna."

Germany blinked. "What was on your face at Wizna?"

Poland stuck out his tongue in disgust, pausing in the bathroom doorway. "Brain gunk," he answered before closing the door behind him.

From out in the hallway, he heard, "Germany, I swear, you ask the _worst_ questions…" followed by an indignant but still clearly distressed, "How was I supposed to know?!" Poland cracked a smile as he turned on the shower, pulling off his puke-dappled pajamas. He poked a finger tentatively under the water, making sure it was not too hot, not too cold, but _juuuuust_ right and stepped underneath it, pulling the shower curtain closed behind him. He lasted about five seconds, max, before sinking onto the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees, and beginning to weep once again.

Nations were not supposed to feel helpless. Nations were not supposed to be scared. Nations were not supposed to have cracks like this in their armor. Nations were not supposed to cry. Those were human luxuries, none of which a Nation could afford.

Nations were supposed to be beaten, but Nations were not supposed to break. Poland wondered how that was supposed to work.

* * *

Historical Stuff:

- The Battle of Kunlun Pass was a battle between Japan and China, summed up oh-so-eloquently by Warsaw in the last chapter as "Japan was all like, 'Bwahaha, I'm gonna cut your supply lines and stuff!' And China was like, 'Aw, hell no!' So they fought." This is the other half of that battle, and this time, China manages to stop Japan from cutting the supply lines. A victory on China's side of the scoreboard, then.

- Okay, now Team Germany starts planning to invade Denmark and Norway. And, since their boss gave them an unrealistically short amount of time to plan it in, they're using travel guides instead of official maps. Why? Because the guy who actually planned the invasion, Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, was given an unrealistically short amount of time to plan the invasion, and he used a tourist guidebook he picked up at a bookstore on the way to his hotel room to save time. Hitler approved his plan, it was carried out, and it actually worked. Naturally, we had to reference this.

- The Battle of Summa was the battle in which Russia finally punched through Finland's Mannerheim Line. There's not too much to say about this except that Russia kept attacking the line and eventually Finland ended up having to retreat. And thus, Russia breaks through the Mannerheim Line. Time to mark another victory on Russia's side of the scoreboard.

-We already explained about the Battle of Wizna, right?

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: I'm **_so_** sorry for the lack of update last week! Seriously, it's been bugging me all week and I'm so, so, so sorry! We're not going to do this again! Please don't be mad!

Warsaw's Note: Yeah, sorry about the whole "not updating" thing. It was just a really busy week and, unfortunately, we have to have lives outside of this fanfic. Ugh, I know, right? But, anyway, I had only written about half a scene for this chapter because I just didn't have time-the first 554 words of China's scene are mine, by the way-but then I remembered that "Oh, crap! I did the first half of Wizna in flashback and I never figured out where to stick it!" So we stuck it here. Um. ENJOY. Oh, wait, crap you already read it. Uh...I love you?

**Please review so we know that maybe we don't suck _that_ badly...**


	10. Panic

_Disclaimer: Guys, this crazy thing happened in between the last time we posted and now...we became the proud owners of Hetalia! ...Haha, no. No. Yeah, that didn't happen. The status remains quo. We remain delusional fans. The series remains a comedy. And all that jazz._

**Chapter Ten: Panic**

_February 5, 1940  
__Stockholm, Sweden_

For all of his defiance and his impassioned declarations that "You haven't won yet," here Finland sat anyway, back in an office with only a desk between him and the national representative of the Soviet Union, staring down at a document and tapping a pen against his chin in nervous thought.

Dang it.

"Don't be too sad, little Finland," Russia said reassuringly, patting his enemy on the shoulder, conveniently forgetting in the process that the bullet wound in that area wasn't entirely healed yet. Finland bit his tongue and managed not to make a sound. Even if he winced in pain, it still counted as a victory, just small one. Well, maybe a tie? Eh, who was he kidding? "You put up a good fight for such a small country," the larger Nation added sweetly.

"Didn't you expect a victory in just a few weeks?" Finland grumbled, shrugging out from under Russia's hand. "It's been almost a hundred days, hasn't it?" He studied the pen clasped between his fingers. It was a nice pen. Shame it wouldn't be seeing any use today, at least not if he had anything to say about it.

Whether or not he _did_ have anything to say about it remained to be seen, however. Still, though. Finland could hope.

Russia smiled at him, politely ignoring that last comment, which Finland supposed he really ought to be grateful for. "Now, tell me, Finland. You have read my peace terms, have you not?"

Finland swallowed. "Er…yes." Oh, dear. This certainly wasn't going to be fun.

Russia leaned forward across the desk, studying his enemy's expression, watching the blond squirm in place. "And what did you think of them?"

"I think I'm losing more in peace than I am in the war," Finland retorted, propping his chin thoughtfully up on one hand and, with the other, tracing circles on the document with the inkless end of the nice pen. _You're nuts, you know that, Russia?_

"I think they're very fair terms," Russia told him, lip protruding in a slight pout as though that would make Finland agree with him or something. _Really nuts_, Finland corrected unhappily in his mind.

"I don't know what terms _you're_ looking at, then," the smaller country mumbled to himself, using his own language as a precaution. As Russia opened his mouth, no doubt to ask what had just been said, Finland continued loudly, "Surely we can work something else out? I mean, I really like my part of Karelia…" Russia clucked his tongue disappointedly. "And, er," Finland continued worriedly, "a lot of the land you want to take is kind of an important industrial area, so maybe we can…edit this a little?" he asked hopefully, pressing the tip of the pen against the first page of the document as a show of his readiness to start revising on the slight chance that Russia agreed. Very slight.

Russia heaved a theatrical sigh. "I did warn you, little Finland," he chastised. "I told you before we ever started this war that you were going to get hurt. I tried so hard to avoid all this."

"Very nice of you?" Finland offered, grasping at straws.

The arctic Nation looked at his enemy head sadly. "These terms," he explained, gently pushing the peace treaty towards Finland, "are what my government has decided on. And, as I said, I think that they are very fair."

"Right," the Scandinavian Nation muttered, wondering if it was at all possible to put these negotiations off for a while so that his country had the chance to recover some of the lost ground. Maybe then they would be in a better position…? _Don't be stupid, Finland_, the blond scolded himself silently with a quick, frustrated shake of his head. _If you put this off any longer, you'll be more likely to lose ground then gain it, and then this creep'll probably make these terms even more demanding._ He shuddered slightly at the it was best to just sign now, after all…

He glanced up to see Russia watching him in blatant amusement. It made the smaller country just that much more nervous and he quickly averted his eyes. "So…" he tried, hurriedly attempting a bit of conversation.

"The terms, Finland?"

"Er…" the country in question crossed his eyes at the document before him. It didn't do any good. He didn't really expect it to. He tried another approach and submitted another, "Er?" into the currently stalled conversation he was trying to wriggle his way out of. That little method was good for about as much as going cross-eyed had been.

"Call for you, Mr. Braginsky, sir?"

Finland gave the random secretary a slightly bug-eyed Thank You for Your Existence smile, which, judging from the look on the aforementioned attendant's face, was a good deal disconcerting. The Nation breathed a quiet sigh of relief; at least he had earned a few more minutes to panic. And by panic, naturally, Finland meant think of a way out of this situation.

Naturally.

Russia gave the other country a somewhat embarrassed smile. "You will excuse me for just a moment, _da_?" he asked, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet.

"Oh, sure. _Sure_." Finland waved him off in what he dearly wished was a casual and not desperate-looking manner. "Take as long as you need. I'll just be…right here."

"_Spasiba_," Russia said, still sounding uncharacteristically genuine in his apology, and made his way around the desk and to the door. As the bigger Nation disappeared into the hall, Finland released a big breath with a small "whew" sound and sank down against the back of his chair.

Screwed, screwed, screwed, he was _screwed_.

After allowing himself a brief panic attack, Finland opted to glance over the treaty once again, hoping to find something he could wheedle out of the terms that Russia wouldn't object to losing _too_ much. Maybe if there was something that was only really _culturally_ important…? At the sound of approaching footsteps, the Finn glanced up quickly. _Oh, dear, that was a really quick call_.Hopefully it hadn't more been good news for Russia…

Instead of the Nation at which Finland was at war strolling back into the room, however, Finland was greeted with the sight of a different neighbor. Sweden entered the doorway, arms crossed, head tipped slightly to the side.

"Oh, it's just you, Sweden," Finland breathed, voice tinted with no small amount of relief. While his country's actual delegation had made the journey to Moscow, Finland himself hadn't trusted Russia nearly enough to walk into the heart of his enemy's country in the middle of a war. You heard _rumors_ about Russia, nasty things he did to get what he wanted in wartime. Sure, there was an official rule against Nations torturing one another—when the rest of the world been laying down the terms for the Second Geneva Convention in 1906, the Nations had realized that maybe it was about time that they got around to making a few rules of their own—but nobody really knew what went on behind closed doors at Russia's place. Nobody really wanted to.

"Y'okay?"

"I've been…better?" Finland attempted weakly. Sweden's brow creased and he moved into the room, maneuvering around the desk, eyes flickering between the smaller Nation's array of bandages. "No, really, you shouldn't worry!" Finland blurted quickly, pulling back. "Sweden, it's really no big-."

"Y're hurt," the taller man said simply. Finland sighed and surrendered to Sweden's analysis.

"Most of them are mostly healed by now," he announced somewhat defensively. "And I've paid him back with just as many bullets." _Give or take a few_.

Sweden ignored him, far too busy gently lifting the loosely-applied bandages on his neighbor's forehead. His scowl deepened when he saw the partly-unhealed injury beneath it. "Recent," he noted sternly.

"Sort of," Finland huffed. "It's sweet of you to worry, Sweden, but I told you; it's not that bad. I'm _fine_."

Sweden gave his "wife" a Look as if to say _Oh, so you ruin your new gloves, lose two-thirds of your blood through a hole in your stomach, come home for Christmas on crutches, and lose both your pistol and your favorite rifle in one go when you're _fine_? I'd hate to see you on a bad day, then. _Granted, that was the more verbose interpretation of the expression's intended meaning, but Finland got the point, all the same.

"It's not like I had any help or anything," he moped as Sweden replaced the cranial bandages. And that much couldn't be denied; for all of the world's support and sympathy, nobody had actually stepped up to the plate to really back him up. Not England, not France, and not Sweden, either. A couple volunteers here and there from various countries, and then there was those laughable Allies' so-called "intervention plans". Jeez, the Western powers' weren't good for much action anymore, were they? Finland sighed.

"Sorry."

"Oh!" Finland suddenly remembered his circumstances. He looked up quickly at Sweden, waving his hands as if to shoo the accusation away. "It's all right, Sweden; I'd hate to have dragged anyone else into a problem I…caused." He sighed again. "Now I just have to clean up my own mess, I suppose," he added, looking forlornly down at the proposed peace terms. "Now that he's broken the Mannerheim Line, I really don't have much of a chance, do I?" he asked with a small, disappointed attempt at a chuckle.

Sweden reached down to give Finland a light squeeze on the uninjured shoulder. "Y' fought well," the man told him encouragingly.

"Thanks, Sweden," Finland spun the pen around the on the top page with his finger. "Still, though…"

"Ah! Still here, little Finland? I was afraid you were going to sneak out."

Both Scandinavian countries looked up abruptly as Russia sauntered back into the room. Finland subconsciously jerked his hand away from the pen as if to say, "What, me? Thinking of signing? Aw, Russia, you're _so crazy_." He cleared his throat awkwardly as the hand settled into his lap. Sweden removed his own fingers from their comforting position on his neighbor's shoulder and he moved away from the chair.

"Perhaps you've had more luck convincing him than I have, _da_?" Russia joked nonchalantly with the departing Nation, who glared furiously in return. Sweden did not appreciate people messing with his "wife," as it were. As the man wordlessly departed from the room, Russia turned cheerfully back to the other Nation.

"Call from your boss?" Finland asked politely, hoping to steer the conversation away from the document between them.

Russia waved his hand dismissively. "Ah, just an update from the warfront. I do not need to tell you how it is going, I presume."

"Heh," was Finland's feeble response. He slipped down in his seat a bit more and wondered exactly how much longer he could hold out without signing Russia's horrible terms. "I think that maybe _I_ should make a call before we, er, go any further with this." _Just in case I don't have to_. "I mean, to check up on my people's opinions of things and all."

"Of course," Russia nodded, helpfully gesturing to the desktop phone as he retook his seat.

_No_, Finland thought frantically, biting his tongue again so he didn't say anything that he would soon regret. _You get out! I don't want you _smiling_ at me while I try to have a conversation with my boss! _"There's no need for you to sit here and be bored while I talk, you know."

"I don't mind," Russia told him innocently.

Finland valiantly fought off a frown and tried again. "…I won't even be speaking a language you know. I'll be using Finnish."

"That's all right." Finland attempted to mimic Russia's cheerful attitude. The look that actually appeared on his face was closer to that which that one makes when desperately attempting to say with a straight face that, "No, dear, of course that dress doesn't make you fat," or, "This is delicious! Thank you _so much _for cooking tonight," when all you really want to do is cry or run or throw your plate at the wall and call the police to report the attempted homicide that was about to go down.

Finland tried very hard to smile. Russia succeeded. Finland bit his tongue again.

_Creeper…_

-o-

_March 12, 1940  
__Moscow, Russia_

Russia drank a lot.

He drank when he was happy. He drank when he was sad. He drank when he was frustrated and when he was angry and when he was lonely and when he was celebrating something, as he was at the moment.

Funny thing, though, was that Russia obviously wasn't happy with the results of his little war with Finland; in fact, neither of the two former belligerents was pleased with how things had turned out. You could see it on their faces whenever the fight was mentioned: a little twitch of the lips towards a frown, a flash of irritation behind the eyes. Finland's displeasure was more obvious, but you could hardly blame the poor guy, considering everything that Russia had insisted on taking from him. Russia, though, had clearly expected better of his troops. Finland's boys had given them a real run for their money; that much was sure. There were whispers going 'round the world now about the inadequacy of the Soviet Union's military, and do you know what Estonia thought about that? He thought it served Russia darn right. Maybe that would teach him a thing or two about purges.

He doubted it, though.

So, when you thought about it, no one was really happy with how things had come to pass. Finland and Russia moped when no one was looking about what they both saw as something of a poor performance on their own parts, and the poor Baltics were just upset that they'd been dragged off to Russia's for a few drinks to "celebrate the peace," as their intimidating neighbor had put it. Drinks hadn't been explicitly mentioned, but that was because they didn't need to be; the presence of alcohol at any social gathering to which Russia was attached was just a given.

Estonia rubbed his fingers against the sides of his glass, having barely touched the dangerous liquid inside, and glanced around the living room, surveying the collected Nations within. Lithuania was seated gingerly on the edge of the sofa, stealing the occasional nervous yet hopeful glance at Belarus, who was perched at the other end. Estonia shook his head; the oldest Baltic country simply refused to take "not no, but _heck_ no" for an answer when it came to the pretty blonde. You would've thought he'd have learned by now that she really wasn't interested… Belarus herself only had eyes for Russia and was currently trying to pester him into regaling the party with stories from the little war. Finland's left eye twitched treacherously with every suggestion, but fortunately, Russia had yet to share anything too upsetting. The vodka had put the man in good spirits, but Estonia had learned that a cheerful mood didn't necessarily mean much or last long in this house. He kept his distance warily and politely declined another refill of his drink. Technically, he hadn't had a _first_ refill yet, anyway. Latvia, however, was a different story, and probably ought to have been taking it a little bit slower. Ukraine buzzed worriedly around the boy while he insisted repeatedly that he was fine. Nobody really believed him.

"Ah, little Finland?" Russia called suddenly, breaking up all other conversations going on around the room. "I do believe there was something you wanted to say to my sisters and me."

Estonia frowned, confused. Looking around the room, he noticed that same reaction mirrored on the faces of everyone who had not actually been on the battlefield. Finland's mouth twitched uncomfortably; evidently he knew what Russia was talking about.

"Oh, yes," the Scandinavian country gave the glass in his hands a death glare. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'm…" Another twitch. "I'm very sorry about what I said. It was rude and uncalled for and pretty nasty."

"Yes, it was," Russia agreed triumphantly, navigating around a table to stand beside the sofa and pat Finland on the head. Judging from his expression, Finland was contemplating murder again. That was happening a lot recently, it seemed. "But I'm sure you didn't mean it," he added sweetly, sympathetically, oh-so magnanimously.

"Of course not," Finland said, forcing up another fake smile and playing along. "You know how it is when you're…"

"Losing?" Russia finished helpfully.

"I was going to say…" Finland's eyes flickered briefly around at the assembled Nations. "Well, yes. You say all sorts of terrible things about your enemy."

"What did you say about big brother?" Belarus demanded from across the room, narrowing her eyes dangerously.

"Nothing that should be repeated in polite company, Bela," Russia answered quickly.

"Well, it wasn't so much about your brother as it was about you and Ukraine," Finland told the pretty country, ignoring his enemy's brief response. The two female Nations looked equally surprised, albeit in different ways. "And, of course, I really am very sorry," Finland added. "I should never have said anything-."

"No, you shouldn't have." Russia said loudly, obviously trying to curtail any further discussion.

"…Of the sort," Finland picked up right where he'd left off anyway, beaming brilliantly at the two ladies. "But your brother, naturally, wouldn't stand for any insult to his sisters. I could say what I wanted about _him_, but the moment I brought _you_ into the conversation, he was furious. You two are lucky to have such a wonderful big brother to defend your honor like that." Finland smiled innocently at Belarus. "He obviously loves you _very much_."

In a matter of moments, Russia's younger sister had latched herself onto her big brother's arm and was speaking in very rapid Russia that, Estonia noticed, quickly devolved into a rather terrifying mantra of two specific words. Estonia cracked a smile as Finland snuck around his suddenly extremely distracted enemy and paused briefly by Ukraine to offer what was likely a _real_ apology before coming to stand next to the middle Baltic.

"You don't think that was too much?" Estonia asked amusedly. Finland crossed his arms and leaned up against the wall.

"It probably was," he acquiesced. "But that doesn't mean Russia didn't have it coming." Estonia chuckled. Finland smiled down at him. "I'm beginning to think that now would be a good time for me to go."

"Before Russia gets loose, you mean?" Estonia asked, watching the chaos from a safe distance. "I think you might be right."

Finland glanced nervously towards the youngest of the Baltic States and worriedly questioned, "Do you think Latvia will be all right? He's had a good number of drinks now…"

"Doesn't he always?" Estonia sighed. You might have thought that Latvia would've learned by now not to drink so much when Russia offered. You would be so very wrong. "I'll make sure he's all right."

"Oh, thank you," Finland breathed, watching the younger Nation worriedly. "I'd do it myself, but I think I've already overstayed my welcome here…"

Estonia said, "And I concur wholeheartedly," as he reached up take Finland's half-full glass. The Scandinavian country relinquished it without really noticing what he was doing, too busy watching anxiously watching Latvia.

"Will you be all right?"

Estonia's smile faltered, just a bit. "Of course. Russia's in a good mood, remember?" _Good enough, anyway._

Finland frowned. "You know that doesn't mean anything," he reminded the other Nation softly.

Estonia winced at the thought. "I'll be fine. We all will." He tried reassuringly. "Belarus will keep Russia occupied for a while, anyway."

"All right…" Finland was obviously unconvinced. "If there's any trouble, just _call_ me, okay?" He neglected to mention how Estonia was meant to do that while Finland was on the move, heading back to his own country, however. "Don't stay too late, and don't let Latvia drink anything more."

"I _know_, Finland." Estonia cut in fondly. "This isn't my first of Russia's parties, you know. Not by a long shot."

Finland sighed. "All _right_," he said eventually. "Be _careful_, Estonia."

"We will." Granted, that wouldn't do anyone any good at all if Russia set his mind to something, but still, Estonia told himself as he watched Finland slip out the door, calling a quick goodbye to his still-occupied host as he did so. It was better than nothing.

-o-

_March 16, 1940  
__London, England_

England worked late. It was just something he did. He worked late, and consumed quantities of tea that most would consider excessive while doing so.

So on this particular night, he was drinking tea and working on paperwork, as he had been doing all evening, all afternoon, all morning, all day, with the exception of quick breaks for food. Food was somewhat essential to life, after all. And more importantly, if he hadn't taken a couple of quick breaks for food, England would probably have gone crazy from the paperwork and strangled someone.

France had called earlier, something about bombs and Germany, with more than a few tangents that had ended in England yelling at him to stop being a bloody pervert. There were probably quite a lot of people questioning their country's choice of diplomatic tactics, but those were the people who didn't know France and England particularly well. They yelled at each other. It wasn't undiplomatic; it was just how they interacted. Heck, if England _didn't_ yell at France, France would probably assume that there was something very wrong.

Anyway, aside from a few quick breaks for food and a phone call full of innuendo and yelling, England had been working all day, and by this point, he was very ready to get out of this office and go home. But that wouldn't happen for a while, and in the meantime, there was work to do. And tea to drink, but that was to keep him sane, and keep him from strangling the next person to knock on his door.

England poured another cup of tea from the teapot on his desk and picked up his pen to get back to work. Before he could start writing, however, he paused, realizing that he kinda had a stomachache. Maybe from too much tea, if there was such a thing?

No. Not too much tea, and not just a stomachache. The rest of his body was starting to hurt too.

A jolt of pain stabbed through his stomach and he dropped the teacup. It didn't shatter, fortunately, having landed on his desk, but it did land on its side and spill its contents across the report he'd been finishing up.

England employed a few choice swear words as he picked up the report and watched tea drip off the paper and into the puddle on his desk. Well, that report was ruined. There went the past two hours of work; the ink had blurred and run together and nothing was legible anymore. He carried the dripping report to the wastebasket and dropped it in before the tea could finish soaking through the papers and start dripping onto the floor.

As he returned to his desk, another jolt of pain stabbed through him and he stumbled. He caught the back of his chair to steady himself and slowly got back into the chair, trying not to move in such a way that would aggravate the pain and make it worse. This jolt wasn't going away; it was just getting worse. It wasn't the only thing; the puddle of tea on his desk was starting to spread, and England forced himself to focus long enough to find something to clean it up with before it ruined even more paperwork.

Another jolt of pain hit him, this one worse than before, and a cry tore its way out of his lips. Suddenly cleaning up the spilled tea seemed a whole lot less important as the preexisting stomachache pain had spread to his entire body. Since he was currently lacking any better solution to the problem, he pulled his feet up onto the chair and tried curling up into a little ball, hoping that it would make the whole body stomachache go away a little. It didn't. It just put England in a position where he wasn't as well balanced on his chair as he could be, which resulted in him falling to the floor when he jerked and tried to curl into a tighter ball as the next jolt of pain hit.

Falling to the floor didn't help either, but you probably already knew that.

One thing that falling to the floor _did_ do, however, was give England the ability to curl up into as tight a ball as possible without having to worry about balancing on his chair or accidentally tipping the chair over or anything silly like that.

That part, at least, was nice. Or as nice as things could get in the present situation, at least.

England wasn't entirely sure how long he lay on the floor, curled up into a little ball and occasionally twitching one way or the other, turning over, stretching out his legs only to curl them back in again. There had to be at least _one_ position where the pain would be, if not gone, then at least lessened a tiny fraction. He just had to _find_ this position, so he kept twitching and turning over and trying to figure out what arrangement of body and limbs would be the magic one that would make it stop hurting.

Nothing he did seemed to work.

After what could have been anywhere from five minutes to five hours (and seriously, England had absolutely no idea which it was), he heard a knock on his office door.

Great, his head was hurting too. The sound of knocking probably hadn't caused the headache, but it had brought it to the forefront of his mind.

There was another knock on his door. "England?"

England responded with an incomprehensible groan that could have meant anything from "help" to "go away and don't make my headache worse." Honestly, he wasn't quite sure what, if anything, he'd been trying to say.

The door opened, admitting Winston Churchill, who looked rather surprised to see his Nation curled up in the fetal position on the floor. "England, are you okay‽"

England looked up at him, wanting desperately to point out that he didn't exactly make a habit of curling up in a ball on the floor of his office, and that, subsequently, he was probably _not_ okay, thank you very much. What came out instead was "did we just get bombed?"

Churchill tried to get a couple of different sentences out at once, causing a vocal traffic jam that resulted in nothing getting out for several seconds before he finally managed to answer the question. "Yes. We just got bombed."

"Knew it," England groaned, trying to uncurl from his little ball. He got about halfway before it started hurting too much and he went back to his original position.

"Why are you-" Churchill began.

"Bombs hurt," England replied, still incapable of forming a proper sentence, still groaning.

"Bombs hurt you physically? Well I guess that makes sense, but… is there anything I can do to help?"

England tried to shake his head, but wasn't quite sure if he was successful. He did succeed in making his vision go temporarily fuzzy and making his headache worse, however. Clearly movement, like grammar, was currently not a possibility. "Not really. What happened?" Either his grammar was improving or he had mastered the art of concealing it with short sentences.

"That's actually what I came in here to tell you. The air raid tonight was the first to cause civilian casualties."

England groaned, not bothering to put words to it this time.

"Do you think you can sit up yet?"

England experimentally began to uncurl from his little ball. He got a little bit further than he had in his last attempt, but he still didn't manage to uncurl all the way. "Not yet."

"Can I get you some kind of medicine? Do painkillers work for this kind of thing?"

"Sometimes, a little. Not very much. It's mostly a placebo effect." He attempted a grin, but it came out as a grimace instead. "Everyone seems to use them anyway, though. They like to pretend it helps."

"Should I get you some then?"

"Don't bother. It probably wouldn't do anything."

"If you say so. Does it always hurt like this when you get bombed?"

"It always hurts some, so I know what's happening. Casualties make it hurt worse. The more something impacts the country, the more it impacts the Nation, so bombs hurt me, and if something kills enough people or does enough damage, it can make me cough up blood, even if there isn't a wound to cause it. Being a Nation isn't fun in wartime. It isn't really much fun in peacetime either, not usually, but it's especially bad during a war." England slowly tried to uncurl his limbs again, and this time succeeded, leaving him sprawled on the floor, probably looking rather ridiculous. Churchill helped the Nation to his feet and guided him over to the chair so that he could sit down properly.

"Feeling better?"

"A little. It still hurts, but it's better, I guess. It'll stop hurting sooner or later, at least until the next time this happens."

"And you're sure there's nothing I can do to help?"

"Not unless you can stop Germany from bombing me, although I suppose we're trying to do that anyway. Win the war, stop Germany from bombing me, save the world from his evil, or… whatever America would say here. Something overdramatic about heroes, probably." He attempted a smile, and got something relatively close, but still not quite there. He wasn't really in a smiling mood at the moment, not after just getting bombed. The pain from the bombing wasn't gone yet, even if it had lessened somewhat, and neither was his headache, and civilian casualties were never a good thing, after all.

Being a Nation was really, _really_ not fun during wartime.

* * *

**Authors' Note**

Historical Stuff:

- Well, the Winter War is over. That's good to know. Well, the peace terms kind of sucked for Finland. We'd rather not list everything here; it'd take far too long. What you need to know is that Finland had to give up a lot of land, but he did get to keep his independence, which surely counts for something, right? But neither Finland nor Russia was really happy with how things turned out, because for such a small country, Finland sure gave the great big Soviet Union a nasty time of it, and these aforementioned harsh peace terms gave Finland a little push in the direction of seeking support from the Germany. Oh, dear, Russia, look what you did... By the way, it was actually signed in Moscow, not Sweden. Please don't put that they signed it at Su-san's place on your history test; your teacher will be so baffled at the fail... (Warsaw did this one, so it's weird.)

- There really isn't much to say about the drama at Russia's house. Character stuff, you know...

- And England gets bombed. You know, that kinda happens a lot in this war, huh? Well, this was the first time the air raid caused civilian casualties, so it would definitely hurt the personification of the country.

- Wow, there really isn't much history in this chapter, is there?

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: I really don't know what to say this time around...

Warsaw's Note: This chapter used to be, like, twice this length, but we both had a lot of difficulty writing the invasions of Norway in my case and Denmark in Vilnius' case, so we split the chapter in half in the interest of publishing on time. Neither of us is happy about it, though. Ugh. In other news, I found a really great Freudian slip in my history notes: when discussing America's relations with China and the USSR during the Cold War, I managed to write "love triangle diplomacy" instead of just "triangle diplomacy" and do you know what? I'm okay with that. In other-other news, proving once again that I'm a terrible American, I spiked one of the Cokes that I never-friggin'-ever drink with maple extract and reveled in its glory. It's fantastic beyond words, you guys. Okay, I'm shutting up now.

**Think of it this way: after all the time it took you to read it, it'll only be a few quick seconds to drop us a few words about what you thought. Please review!**


	11. The Opportune Moment

_Disclaimer: You guys, the craziest thing happened! We didn't update for a week, and suddenly we owned Hetalia as a reward from the universe for...not updating!_ _Right! Right? ...no. Guys, we do not own._

**Chapter Eleven: The Opportune Moment**

_March 18, 1940  
__Berlin, Germany_

"Hiiiiiiiii, Germany!" Italy announced as he burst into Germany's house, grinning like he'd just won some kind of lottery. His grin diminished a little bit when he found that Germany was not in the foyer, but returned full-force when Austria and Poland paused in their argument to tell Italy that Germany was in his office.

"Hiiiiiiiii, Germany!" Italy announced in the exact same tone as before as he burst into Germany's office. Germany looked up from his paperwork just in time to realize that he was just too late to avoid getting tackle hugged. And it was a tackle hug for the ages, one in which breathing quickly became an impossibility, as did squirming or flailing out of the hug. For someone whose go-to battle tactic was waving a white flag and who constantly slacked off in training, Italy's hugs were surprisingly hard to escape. Italy was quite proud of that fact.

Once Italy finally stopped attempting to suffocate his ally with hugging, and once Germany caught his breath, Italy sat down on the desk (not noticing Germany's look of disapproval or the fact that he had knocked over a stack of papers in the process, which were now scattered randomly across the floor instead of neatly organized and stacked the way they were supposed to be). "So why did you call me over, Germany?" Italy asked. "Do you want to make pasta? Or play football? Or paint pictures or-"

Germany, who had evidently decided that since the damage was already done, it wasn't worth fighting to get Italy to sit in a chair like a normal person would, sighed and ignored his ally's choice of seating arrangements. "No, Italy, I did not call you over so we could make pasta or play football. I called you because-"

"Because you wanted to paint?"

"No! Because we need to discuss the war!"

"Can we discuss the war while we paint?"

"Italy, we're not painting!"

Italy pouted in the cutest, most endearing way he knew how. "But why not?"

As he'd predicted, Germany's anger could not stand up against Italy's superior cuteness for long. "Because I don't have any paint," he admitted. Italy didn't see how this was a problem.

"We could go get some," he suggested.

Germany sighed, again, but this time he sounded less angry. "Not now, Italy. My boss wants us to discuss the war now. Maybe we can get paint later."

"Okay! So what are we discussing about the war? Ooh, are we going to talk about-"

"We're not talking about white flags, running away, or surrendering," Germany interrupted. "Or pasta supplies," he added as an afterthought.

"But pasta's important! How can we not discuss it?"

"Because I'm officially putting you in charge of anything pasta-related. That can be one of your jobs, okay?"

Italy grinned and saluted. "You can count on me!"

"Now that the issue of pasta supplies is out of the way, we need to discuss your entry into the war. Now, Prussia, Austria, and I are going to handle the fighting at the beginning, but we'll need your help later on."

Germany cringed as Italy proved his "damage already done" theory wrong by knocking more papers off the desk as he flailed his arms. "But Germanyyyyy-"

"You're not going to be involved in as much of the fighting," Germany interrupted. "I'll handle most of it. France will be distracted fighting me by the time you get into the war, so you won't be in as much danger."

Italy continued to pout.

"Look, Italy, our bosses already decided that you would be involved too," Germany pointed out. "And you already agreed to help me, remember?"

"Yeah, but what if France attacks me!"

"That's what all that training we did was for. To make sure that if you get attacked, you'll know what to do."

"But what if I forget!"

"You won't forget. You'll remember what to do when the time comes. France won't know what hit him."

"But if I get hurt, will you come save me?"

"Yes, Italy. If you get hurt, I'll come save you. But the point of all that training was to make sure that you don't get hurt. Just remember all the things we practiced, and you'll be fine, okay? So don't worry about getting hurt."

"Okay, but what if-"

"You'll be fine," Germany repeated. "And you won't be fighting alone, remember? You'll have me and Romano and Prussia and Austria on your side too. There's no way France is going to be able to fight all of us."

"But…"

"Italy, you're supposed to be my best ally ever, remember? Surely my best ally ever can stand up to France. I promise, France isn't going to be able to hurt you-"

"And if he does hurt me, you'll come save me, right?" Italy interrupted.

"And if he does, I'll save you. And then I'll make him wish he'd never so much as looked at you. Do you think you can stop worrying now?"

Italy thought about this, and an idea occurred to him. "I bet making pasta would _really_ help me stop worrying. We can have a meeting in the kitchen, can't we, Germany?"

Germany sighed. "Fine, let's go to the kitchen."

Italy was off the desk and halfway to the door before Germany even finished his sentence. He led the way to the kitchen and by the time Germany caught up, Italy was already pulling pasta ingredients out of the pantry. "See? Now I'm not worrying about the war because I'm making pasta for everyone," Italy announced.

"Good to know," Germany said. "Now can we go back to discussing the war? What I think would…hang on." He stalked over to the doorway and looked out into the hall. "Poland, stop trying to eavesdrop and go do your chores."

"I'm, like, not eavesdropping; I'm just sweeping," Poland said from the hall.

"How many times have you tried to use that as an excuse now?" Germany asked. "It's getting old. Go sweep somewhere else. And I do mean _sweep_ this time, not stand around holding a broom. If I catch you over here again, you won't get any of the pasta Italy's making for lunch."

"Ooh, pasta!" was Poland's oddly cheerful response. Italy assumed he left to sweep somewhere else, because Germany returned to the conversation at hand, although he did stay where he was in the doorway to keep a lookout just in case.

"Anyway, Italy," Germany continued, "as for the question of when you should join the war, I think it would be best if you and Romano—"

"Wait until France is already losing?" Italy asked hopefully.

"No! Just…wait until the opportune moment, okay."

"Okay!" Italy said. "I'll wait to attack until the opportune moment, and in the meantime, I'm in charge of everything related to pasta supplies! We're going to win and this is going to be the best war ever, isn't it, Germany?"

"I'm not sure I'd word it like that, but…yeah. It's going to be the best war ever."

-o-

_April 9, 1940  
__Copenhagen, Denmark._

Getting invaded was never fun, for pretty obvious reasons: nausea, inevitable fighting, danger, plus the annoying tendency of invading armies to attack painfully early in the morning when anyone sane would be asleep. War was even less fun than getting invaded; _fighting_ someone might not have been too bad, but the difference between war and a fight is that a fight is between a limited number of people who either chose to get involved or at least did something to tick someone else off enough to cause the fight to start in the first place. A war, on the other hand, drags _everyone_ into the fight, whether they want to be involved or not, and generally makes everyone miserable because of all the death and bloodshed and suffering going on around them.

So getting invaded isn't fun, war is less fun, and one step worse than war is _losing_ a war. Being forced to give up whatever the invader wants from you isn't fun, being conquered isn't fun, and being dragged off to work for whoever just beat you _really _isn't fun.

One step worse than losing a war is being forced to surrender within a matter of hours. Not being forced to accept an ultimatum, not losing a major battle within the first few hours, but losing an entire _war_ in a matter of hours. Getting invaded isn't fun. War isn't fun. Losing a war isn't fun. Being forced to surrender within a matter of hours just _sucks_.

Probably the only way to go one step beyond being forced to surrender within a matter of hours would be to have the invading Nation insist on acting all _nice_ about it. Not nice as in _I know we were just at war, but I'll still be all sweet and friendly to you because I'm stronger than you so I can afford to be_. (Not that _that_ brand of niceness isn't annoying in itself; no matter how genuine it is, it always comes across as some level of patronizing or gloating or something similarly infuriating.) Not nice as in the patronizing kind, but nice as in _I know we were just at war, but I'm going to pretend that we're friends now and you'd better play along_. There was a very distinct difference between the two kinds of niceness, but as a general rule of thumb, the kind that involved the guy who just threatened to bomb his citizens if he didn't surrender suddenly pretending to be his new best friend was definitely worse.

Ugh, war _sucks_.

The day had gotten off to a bad start when Denmark woke up feeling sick thanks to an invasion that had come well before anyone could honestly consider it to be "day" anyway. After a minute or so of near-vomit, Denmark had changed into his uniform and run off to fight the invasion, trying to ignore the fact that it wasn't even four thirty in the morning yet.

It wasn't too long before he found himself fighting Germany outside of Amalienborg Palace.

Denmark already knew that he wasn't going to win the war. That pretty much went without saying: Germany was better prepared and, more importantly, Germany was a whole lot more powerful. Denmark could fight as hard as he wanted, but he was a pretty tiny country compared to Germany, had a tiny army compared to Germany, and was generally _screwed_.

That didn't mean that he wouldn't fight until either Germany shot him in the head or his boss came out and personally told him to stand down.

So he and Germany fought. Fortunately, there was no sign of Germany's allies; Denmark didn't know where they were, but he didn't have time to worry about them now. If they showed up, he was screwed. If they didn't show up, he was screwed, but he might last a few more minutes. It really didn't make much difference; the point here was to do as much damage as possible before being defeated, or depending on what his boss decided, before he was forced to surrender.

Germany appeared to support the idea of Denmark surrendering without a fight, since Germany had politely suggested that it would be the best of Denmark's (very limited) options when he first saw him. Denmark had been significantly less polite when he refused. So fighting it was.

Denmark shot at Germany and very nearly managed to put a bullet in his chest, but Germany moved just in time and the bullet instead only grazed his shoulder. Germany grimaced and shot back with similar results.

Denmark scowled, fired a shot to distract Germany, and used the distraction to close some of the distance between himself and Germany. Denmark had always preferred to fight up close. The bullet missed Germany, but it had provided a sufficient distraction for Denmark to get close enough to punch Germany in the face, something Denmark had been longing to do since the invasion had woken him up that morning.

Germany responded by doing his best to pistol-whip Denmark, but Denmark ducked under the blow and slammed his fist into Germany's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of the younger Nation. Germany stumbled back, gasping in order to get some air into his lungs, while Denmark knocked him off balance with a well-placed kick.

Finally getting some air into his lungs, Germany forced himself back onto his feet, jerking to the side just in time to avoid getting shot. Denmark cursed under his breath. For a second there, he'd been so sure he was going to win this fight. As Germany went to shoot at Denmark, Denmark got out from the path of the bullet just before Germany finished firing it. Denmark went to reply with a bullet of his own, but suddenly hesitated as planes roared overhead. Denmark looked up and swallowed hard, seeing the formation of German bombers flying over the city.

He looked back at Germany nervously. _He wouldn't bomb civilians, would he?_ Denmark wondered. He wasn't entirely sure of the answer to that.

"Don't worry," Germany told him. "They're not dropping bombs. Just leaflets, encouraging your citizens to take the sensible option and surrender. I'd advise you to do the same. I know you don't want to, but you can't deny that you don't really have any chance of beating me. I'd prefer not to hurt you or your citizens, but if you don't surrender, I will have to resort to bombing your cities." The worst part about it all was how darn _apologetic_ he looked about the whole thing, like he really _didn't_ want to hurt anyone. "Your military simply isn't large enough to stop mine. I know you _want_ to fight me, but if you want to protect your citizens, your only option is to surrender. That's the reality of the situation."

Denmark spent several seconds thinking it over while glaring at Germany before finally letting the arm holding his pistol drop to his side. "Can I talk to my boss?" he asked.

"Of course," Germany told him, and gestured for him to lead the way. Both Germany and Denmark put away their guns, but as Germany followed him into Amalienborg Palace, Denmark felt rather like he was being marched forward at gunpoint. Just, you know, in the most polite way possible.

Germany had waited in the hall as Denmark discussed the matter with his boss. He did, of course, make it crystal clear to both Denmark and anyone else in the vicinity that if anyone bothered him, it wouldn't end well for the city. Denmark didn't keep Germany waiting in the hall for long, not trusting Germany not to bomb the place just to hurry the talks along if he felt they were taking too long. Denmark wouldn't put it past him, considering the rumors he'd heard about what was going on at Poland's place.

"Did you come to a decision?" Germany asked when Denmark left the room. As if Denmark's expression and body language weren't making it obvious already that he had.

Denmark nodded, keeping his eyes on the floor, not able to bring himself to meet Germany's eyes.

"And?"

Denmark briefly squeezed his eyes shut to keep the tears from spilling out. "I surrender," he said quietly. Germany held out a hand expectantly, and Denmark handed over his pistol.

"I'm glad you've made the right decision," Germany said. "Now, we'll have to sign the official papers and then you can pack your things. You're going to have to move to my house. For your protection, of course, in case France and England decide to try anything."

"Of course," Denmark said, giving Germany a nasty glare. _Don't take over my country and then insist that you did it to protect me. At least have the decency to be honest instead of trying to sugarcoat it._

Denmark numbly followed Germany off to sign the formal surrender papers, doing his best to hold back the tears. He'd been conquered. In less than a _day_. Heck, in less than _half_ a day. That had to be some kind of world record.

Despite Denmark's best efforts, the papers ended up with teardrops on them.

-o-

_April 10, 1940  
__Elverum, Norway_

Norway, like most people, wasn't a really big fan of getting invaded because, you know, nausea and war and all that unpleasant stuff that everyone's been complaining about since the war began. And Norway, like most people, particularly didn't like getting invaded and then losing a whole bunch of battles, because for one thing, it made the war more difficult, and also, it kinda killed morale.

By this point, then, Norway was developing a passionate hatred for this war. He was supposed to be _neutral_, for starters, so he shouldn't have even been in it. And, more importantly, Germany had kind of been winning a lot, and Norway had been losing a lot, so overall this war that Norway shouldn't have even been in was making him miserable. His morale was pretty close to dead by this point and considering how the battles had been going, Norway was a little surprised that _he_ wasn't dead by this point.

What he suspected would be the latest in this string of unsuccessful battles was the current situation: he'd found himself facing off against a German raiding party that was attempting to capture Norway's boss, which Norway just wasn't okay with. On Norway's side was an improvised fighting force, made up of a rifle company of the Royal Guards and a bunch of volunteers. His side had a slight numerical advantage, but unfortunately, Germany's side had the advantages of better weapons and better training. Hence Norway's pessimism.

Of course, Norway could be as pessimistic about the outcome of this battle as he wanted, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't do whatever it took to keep Germany from capturing his boss.

This was the first time that Norway had run into Germany himself, although he'd fought Germany's allies an annoying number of times (emphasis on _annoying_; he seemed to run into Prussia at pretty much every battle). He wasn't entirely sure what to expect from Germany, not since this war had started. After the last war, nobody in their right mind could have wanted another, especially not so soon, so what did that say about Germany's mental state?

This really only made Norway more determined to defeat Germany, however, because Norway wasn't allowing an only-_possibly_-sane Nation anywhere near his boss, particularly considering the rumors about what had happened to Poland. No way was Germany going to win this. No way was Germany going to get one step closer to Norway's boss. Norway would_ not _let him.

And so, he shot at Germany. Because, you know, that what you do in a battle. You shoot at people, and they shoot at you, and you hope that your aim is better than theirs. Or, failing that, you shoot at each other and pray that the other guy runs out of ammo first, or that you get unexpected reinforcements, or maybe just that the other guy happens to be having a bad day. The point is, you try to kill the other guy, and you try to avoid letting the other guy kill you, all of which is easier said than done, particularly when both combatants are Nations who have experience at that handy little dodging-bullets-_just_-before-they're-fired trick that most of the Nations had gotten quite good at over the years.

Germany managed to avoid Norway's first shot, and countered with one of his own. Norway sucked in a breath and ducked out of the bullet's way, slipping into safety behind one of his country's own vehicles. He peeked around the car to catch sight of Germany barking an irritated order to one of his soldiers. Norway frowned and pushed himself upright again. _You're not breaking this roadblock_, he thought determinedly, eyes narrowing. He shook his head, clearing it. Letting his anger at being invaded—neutral just didn't mean much of anything anymore, did it?—take over would do him no good. He adjusted his grip on the rifle in his hands, took another deep breath, and raised the gun. "You're not," he repeated aloud, albeit in a soft whisper. He knew Germany couldn't hear him, but didn't mind so much, just as long as _he_ knew that the words were said. "Breaking." He aimed the weapon, closing his eyes for the briefest of moments, focusing. _Focusing_. He had to wait for the right moment to fire, didn't he? He opened his eyes, seeing his enemy doing the same thing. "This _roadblock_," he growled, squeezing the trigger.

As Norway's bullet made contact with Germany's shoulder, a hint of a satisfied smirk danced for a split second at the corners of Norway's lips, twitching them up into the tiniest of smiles even as he felt the other Nation's bullet pull off a similar feat. He jerked backwards as the projectile tore into his arm, letting out a pained gasp and stumbling. He dropped back into the reasonably safe area covered by his vehicle to assess the damage, pressing two fingers gently to the wound and pulling the back to study the blood. Eh. Not too bad.

Switching the gun to his other hand, Norway gave the shoulder of his injured arm a little experimental shake. He winced; it hurt, but he could still move it if absolutely necessary. He'd had worse. So much worse…

Norway peered out, beyond his cover, searching for the personification of the invading country. Germany was nowhere to be seen. Good. That was very good. It seemed Norway's own shot had been better than Germany's, then. Norway raised his rifle again, wiggling his fingers to warm them up before settling them into their positions on the weapon. He readied himself to fire again; no need to give the Germans any reprieve, after all…

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Stuff:

- Okay, so Italy and Germany have a meeting about invading France, and Italy agrees to enter the war at the opportune moment. Which I'm sure will _certainly_ not correspond to the point at which it becomes clear that France is pretty much defeated already.

- And Denmark gets invaded, and the war lasts about six hours. Basically, Denmark knew his military wouldn't be able to defeat Germany's, and Germany was threatening to bomb civilians, so Denmark surrendered, rather than get a bunch of people killed prolonging a war he knew he couldn't win. Also, Germany was doing the propaganda thing here, and trying to convince everyone that this was all friendly and for Denmark's protection and stuff.

- And at the same time, Norway gets invaded, and the war lasts a lot longer than six hours. Here, Norway is fighting off Germany's forces, who want to capture his government in order to force Norway to surrender early. Norway wins the fight, his government gets away, and thus, the war can continue. Congratulations, Norway.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: Okay, so I've had surprisingly little homework for most of the semester, and now suddenly I'm up all night doing homework. I cannot _wait_ for this semester to be over. I'm not looking forward to moving out of the Secret Annex, which I love, (yes, I named my dorm room the Secret Annex. It has a Secret Annex-y feel to it, okay?) but I am looking forward to a homework-free summer. Memorizing the past tense of six chapters worth of German verbs in an hour is not fun, and is not something I want to repeat.

Warsaw's Note: You guys, I made a 95 on my Trig final. So happy now. It's a college course; I'm a high school junior. Not bad, right? Heh...that's why this chapter didn't happen on time, by the way. Haha, life sucks. Oh, well. For the record, all I wrote of this chapter was like half of Norway's scene, since this was originally the second half of chapter ten, but Norway was...very stubbornly resisting invasion, shall we say. Bloody bugger, ugh. Neither of us could write the scene we originally had planned, so we changed it, and then we ended up having to split the scene, anyway. Life, guys. LIFE.

**In other news, our updating is probably going to be a little weird until the end of the school year, because of homework/studying drama. We're going to get a chapter a week done, but the chapters might be a day or so late. Sorry!**


	12. Carpooling to the Invasion

_Disclaimer: The universe didn't reward us for updating a week late. It also didn't reward us for getting back on schedule. We still don't own Hetalia._

**Chapter Twelve: Carpooling to the Invasion**

_May 8, 1940  
__Berlin, Germany_

You would think that Germany had learned his lesson last time, but here he was once again, trapped in the car with both Prussia and Austria, early in the morning, on his way to another invasion, this time of France and the Low Countries. Austria had complained, Prussia had whined, Germany had yelled, and in the end, none of them had really gotten their way. In an unfortunately unsuccessful effort to quell any arguments before they began, Germany had decreed that Prussia could have the backseat all to himself, since Austria had occupied it on the way to their previous engagement, and the way back didn't _really_ count, since Prussia had been forced to share it with poor dead Poland, who had bled on the seat all icky-like. Obviously, those had not been Germany's exact words, but you get this gist of it.

Austria was not and had never been a morning person, but Germany knew for sure that Prussia was perfectly capable of popping up as early as necessary, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, when there was a war on, so his little brother couldn't quite fight off the sneaking suspicion that Prussia was just putting up such an obnoxious fuss to annoy his traveling companions. Not that Germany blamed him too much. "Early to bed, early to rise" may have had its merits, but that certainly didn't mean that waking up before the birds didn't suck something awful.

So, Germany had listened to his brother's grievances patiently, if he did say so himself, and then told Prussia that he was just going to have to bring a pillow and sleep in the car, like it or not, but he _supposed_ it was okay if Prussia put his boots up on the back seat, just so long as he was _very_ careful and they were _completely_ clean…

Prussia had thought about it for a minute, called his brother's attempts at reparations pitiful, and gone off in search of the absolute softest pillow in the house, anyway, insistently testing all of them.

Germany was just glad his brother had shut his big mouth for once. Unfortunately, that meant that he had Austria sulking beside him in the passenger's seat, but, hey, one out of two wasn't bad, was it? The blond sighed. Maybe he was just desperate…

"Something wrong?" Austria asked disinterestedly, staring out the window despite having long since lost any curiosity as to what his surroundings held.

Germany briefly wondered whether his grumpy neighbor was bored enough to actually try and make conversation, or if he was just being polite. Deciding to try and break up the awkward silence and take his chances with discussion, he shrugged and said, "Do you want the list?"

"Not particularly," Austria sniffed, adjusting his glasses apathetically. He didn't seem to have anything more to say, so Germany took that to be a gentle push in the "shut up" direction and obliged him. After a few moments, however, the sullen aristocrat spoke up again. "Is it really necessary to invade the Low Countries _and_ France all at once? Couldn't you do this in…stages?"

"Don't look at me. It wasn't my plan," Germany told him, mildly irritated already. "We discussed this, Austria." _And you complained about it then, too._

"_Why_ is there _noise_?" Prussia groaned loudly from behind them both. Germany rolled his eyes and prepared himself to ignore the outburst, but he was forced to change his mind when a pillow came out of nowhere and abruptly smacked him upside the head before doing the same to Austria. Twice.

"Prussia, I'm _driving_," Germany scolded angrily, becoming even more annoyed. "Are you trying to get us killed before we even get out of the country?"

"No. I'm _trying_ to _sleep_!" Prussia countered, tucking the pillow back beneath his head. "Not everybody likes to wake up at six in the morning like you, you freak."

"Prussia-," Germany sighed, ready to remind his borderline insufferable big brother that it had most certainly _not_ been his idea to drag anyone out of bed that day, but they had a job to do, so they were just going to have to grin and bear it. Or at least bear it, anyway, no smiling required. However, he didn't get a chance to say any of that, because Austria cut him off.

"Is that _my_ pillow?" everyone's favorite freeloading noble demanded incredulously.

Prussia opened his eyes and grinned maliciously at him. "Maybe."

Germany tapped his fingers exasperatedly on the steering wheel. This may have been doing wonders for his "Prussia is just doing this to annoy the rest of us" theory, but it wasn't so kind towards his budding headache. "Prussia, did you really need-?"

"Just _what_ do you think gave you the right to steal my pillow, Prussia?" Austria demanded, speaking so loudly over Germany that the blond gave up mid-sentence.

"_Commandeer_," came the sarcastic correction from the backseat. "Besides, I'm pretty sure _Germany_ gave me the right to steal your pillow. It's the softest one in the house, isn't it, bro?" He smacked his brother again. "Here, feel."

"Prussia!"

"You need to learn some restraint, Prussia," Austria growled.

"You want to come back here and teach me?" Prussia asked with a savage grin, sitting up and brandishing Austria's pillow dangerously.

"I will, if you're not careful."

"If _I'm_ not careful? Last I checked, you left your psycho girlfriend at home, so I'd watch what I said if I were you."

"How _dare_ you-!" Germany quickly tried to block Austria's attempt to climb into the back seat and beat an apology out of Prussia, who was currently cracking up laughing, which was only making the situation worse.

"All right, you two!" the blond barked loudly in his no-nonsense voice, trying to get their attention without taking his eyes or hands off of the road or wheel, respectively, for too long. "If you make me pull this car over, believe me, _no one_ will be happy."

Evidently, someone begged to differ. "Well, then I would just walk home," Austria volleyed back, earning a rude snort from Prussia as the two of them tugged back and forth on a pillow that was increasingly likely to rip at any given second.

"Please, you'd get lost before you were out of sight of the car."

Austria gave Prussia what was supposed to be a withering look. Prussia didn't wither in the slightest, but the grumpy noble didn't seem to notice. "I would _not_."

"You would!"

"I am perfectly capable of-,"

"Just admit it!"

"Stop acting so childish-,"

"_Please_ do, both of you," Germany interjected, hoping to stop the fighting before it escalated any further and one of his passengers ended up dead. Actually, perhaps he ought to stay out of this little tiff after all…

"Stay out of this, West," Prussia retorted, clubbing Austria in the face with his pillow, knocking the brunette back into the passenger's seat where he landed with a rather put-out "Oof!" Out of the corner of his eye, Germany watched Austria adjusting his glasses and contemplating murder for a few moments before he spoke up again.

"Shut up," the blond demanded, abandoning all pretexts of civility. "Or I will knock the both of you out, just to get some peace and quiet."

"We _would_ get to sleep longer…" Prussia mused wickedly.

"Not to mention that he'd have to do all of the fighting by himself," Austria added, apparently warming to the idea.

Germany frowned, beginning to feel slightly desperate. "I'm entirely serious, you two. I _will_ turn this car around, and-,"

"Austria, we're winning!" Prussia burst out, reaching over to cheerfully tug at Mariazell. Austria slapped his hand away before resuming his attempts to reclaim his newly beloved pillow. Prussia jerked it out of his way in the nick of time. "I think it's only fair that you share your stuff, anyway," he drawled, holding the pillow protectively out of his opponent's reach. "Since you're crashing at our place and all."

"It's your _brother's_ house," Austria huffed, visibly irritated at his own inability to recover lost ground.

"Yeah, but I'm _family_. You're just this awkward appendage hanging off the end…"

"The _Anschluss_ was hardly my idea, if that's what you're suggesting."

"What, you think it was ours, either? Nobody wanted you here!"

"Your _boss_ evidently did."

"Am I supposed to care? Obviously, he'd never met you."

"Why can't you save the fighting for the battlefield?" Germany asked loudly, although not loudly enough. He was beginning to wish that he'd taken Hungary up on her offer to come fight with them instead of leaving her to watch over Poland. She would've been far less annoying and much more useful in a fight than Austria. Still, though, it wouldn't have really been fair to bring someone who wasn't part of the conflict along to the war, and so Germany was stuck with Austria and Prussia. A whiny aristocrat and the most obnoxious Nation the world over, who preferred to act his shoe size instead of his age. Germany sighed; he actually would rather have been stuck in a car with Italy, who would be going on about pasta and surrender, and his southern half, who would be going on about the ninety-nine reasons that Germany sucked so far that day. Germany once again found himself wondering how much trouble he would get in if he dumped his allies at the nearest gas station, or shot them up and threw them in a ditch somewhere. His boss had met Prussia, after all, surely he would understand…

-o-

_May 8, 1940  
__London, England_

England stared into his tea as though the answers to all of life's great mysterious swirled around inside of the little porcelain cup. Balanced on one shoulder, pressed up against his cheek, was his telephone, and he was tapping a pen loudly on his bedroom desk. France watched him from where he sat in a chair dragged up against the side of the small table, smiling over his own teacup in amusement as his ally struggled to carry on a conversation with America.

"Have you listened to a _word_ I've said to you?" the island Nation demanded, scowling in frustration. "I am trying to…no, I am _not_ bragging, I…this is _significant_, you git! Don't you know anything at all about-?" France chuckled aloud and England turned to glare at him. "Oh, hush," he snapped, then said into the phone. "Not you, America—well, why not? You and France can both _shut_ your mouths."

France threw his unoccupied hand into the air. "What did I say?" he asked innocently, attempting to hide his smile and failing, not that it bothered him in the slightest. England pointed dangerously at him—the _horror_—before returning to what was rapidly devolving into insult warfare.

"Listen," England ordered into the telephone receiver with all the authority he could muster up in spite of the combined irritations that were France and America. "I am at _war_ here, America. The enemy has already made significant progress in his…yes, I suppose if you wanted to call them 'plans for world domination,' you could. What I'm trying to say, though, is that I have…" A surprised smile snuck past his defenses and displayed itself proudly across his features. "Well, yes, I suppose France and I _are_ the…defenders of justice and freedom." France quirked an eyebrow in amusement. "And as the…er, _that_, we wanted to know how you felt about possibly…yes. Yes, that's what I—what? _What_? No!" The conversation appeared to change course suddenly as England turned bright red and exploded at the voice on the other end. "No, we will not be your bloody _sidekicks_! I…be quiet! America, I swear…!"

France put his head down on the desk and laughed until there were tears in his eyes.

England ignored him quite pointedly. "No, _you_ shut up!" he demanded of the North American country. France laughed harder. "You know what? Nobody even asked you how you felt about—that is none of your business, thank you very much! What are you…there is nothing wrong with my cooking; what does that even have to do with this? How dare you-? No, I _don't_! And do you know what? Coffee is _disgusting_!" He slammed the phone back onto its hook with so much homicidal force that his ally was surprised that nothing broke.

France tried—and failed—to swallow his smile. "So," he asked with a truly admiral level of seriousness, more than should have been humanly possible under the given circumstances. "How'd it go?"

And, for a moment there, France could've sworn that England was going to actually breathe fire and incinerate his head. "I _hate_ _everyone_," the particularly unhappy Nation declared loudly, before downing the rest of his only somewhat warm tea in one gulp and dropping his head into his arms in despair.

France patted him supportively on the shoulder. "There, there, _Angleterre_," he cooed, scooting a little closer to throw his arms around the younger Nation. "Maybe he'll decide to work with Germany instead and we'll get to beat him up," he offered sweetly, nuzzling his increasingly irritated ally.

England said something that sounded suspiciously like, "I hate you and your stupid, ugly French face."

France swatted him on the back of the head. "Be nice, _Angleterre_. Don't take your little lover's quarrel with America out on me." England's hand shot out before France could even register what was happening, abruptly colliding with the older Nation's chest and shoving him and his chair roughly backwards. Balance completely lost, France soon landed hard on the floor, swearing as he did so. England looked down at him and chuckled viciously.

"That is not funny!" France snapped, getting back to his feet and dusting himself off far more than could possibly be necessary. "You always were a brat, do you know that?"

"And you always were a _loser_, France." England countered huffily, drawing out the vowels of the insult for a few extra seconds each.

"And you call yourself a gentleman…" France scowled, returning his chair to its previous upright position and making a big show of retaking his seat. "Once a pirate, always an unruly, uncultured little imp, I suppose."

England turned a rather telling shade of pink and once again shoved France in the chest. The chair clattered once more to the ground, taking an utterly shocked European Nation with it. "That's the French for you," the supposed gentleman drawled. "You never learn from your mistakes." This was clearly interpreted as an act of war.

"Why, you…" France growled furiously, kicking the legs of England's chair out from underneath it. England let out a satisfying yelp as he, too, collapsed onto the carpet, sprawling out on his stomach. He spluttered out the beginnings of an insult, but couldn't come up with anything before France drowned him out with his laughter. "And that's the English for you. You can never manage any good counterattacks. All that _you_ have going for you is that 'stiff upper lip'. Isn't that right, _mon petit prince_?"

England silently reached back up to the surface of his desk, locked his fingers around the handle of his teapot, and then poured its by-now cooled contents right over his ally's head. France let out a miserable wail, immediately attempting to dry his hair and then, failing that, he settled for the next best thing and tackled England, going straight for the throat.

"You just _ruined_ my beautiful clothes and my beautiful hair…!" France yowled, tears beginning to form in his eyes, as he attempted to strangle the Nation he was supposed to be working _with_.

England roared with laughter, appearing to not even notice France's attempts at revenge. "Your beautiful hair…" he repeated amidst gasps for air that were unlikely to be caused by the hands around his neck. He reached up to wipe a few tears from his own eyes before spluttering out, "Stop it, _stop_ it, France. We're supposed to be on the same side, remember?"

"I'm not the one who attacked viciously and without warning, _mon cher_." France snapped, relinquishing his evidently ineffective grip anyway. England made a polite effort to stifle the last few chuckles as France crossed his arms and glared. "I'm sure Germany isn't sabotaging _his_ allies, you know."

England sobered up a bit. "Yes, well…there's always Prussia?" he offered weakly.

France shook his head. "Prussia _likes_ war."

"But Austria's there too," England protested.

"You don't think Germany would be stupid enough to send them to the same place, do you? _Think_, for goodness sake, England." France scolded. England frowned, apparently chastised enough to push himself upright again and give the matter some serious thought. "And we are _supposed_ to be having a strategy meeting."

"Yes, well…" England mumbled sheepishly, obviously disappointed in himself for not maintaining at least the appearance of maturity.

France smirked at him, enjoying the upper hand in their little discussion. "What good will fighting each other do us, _hmm_?" he demanded. "What are we going to do when Germany attacks us and all we have to show for our war councils is a couple of bruises and an empty teapot? We _are_ at war, England."

"You started it," the island Nation said grumpily. "Nevertheless, you do make a valid point. For once."

France beamed smugly at his ally as he stood his chair upright again and took his rightful place back on his throne. "Perhaps now we can get some actual work done."

"Pipe down!" England retorted, fixing his own chair and setting the recently-emptied teapot back down on the desk. "And just what _of value _have you contributed to this meeting? All you did was sit there and make disgusting double entendres before America called." They stared at each other for a moment, having both come to the same realization at the same time. There was someone else they could pin the blame for ruining their conference on, it seemed. "Bloody America," England proclaimed loudly.

"He ruins everything," France agreed helpfully as they crossed their arms in frustrated unison.

England sighed. "Really, though. We've got to actually discuss strategy, here, France. Germany and his allies have been living together, for goodness' sake. They've had ample time to come up with something."

France frowned at his empty teacup. "They're probably planning their evil as we speak," he nodded seriously. The statement was a good deal overdramatic, but they both seemed to accept it as a valid description of the circumstances anyway.

"Now that you mention it," England continued slowly. "Prussia and Austria argue all the time. The only way Germany can keep them from killing each other is if they're talking about the war."

France paled. "They must spend every waking moment discussing how to beat us," he gasped, latching right onto the theory and taking it even further.

"I'll bet they have backup plans for their _backup_ plans."

"I bet they've got every inch of the map memorized."

"I'll bet they've anticipated every possible move we can make…"

"And thought of a way to counter it."

England and France stared at each other in self-induced, paranoid terror. "France," England squeaked. "We're going to _die_."

-o-

_May 8, 1940  
__Potsdam, Germany_

Germany pulled over.

"All right," he ordered, furiously. "Everybody out!" The disgruntled Nation wrenched the door to the driver's side of his car open and climbed out onto the roadside grass, tapping his feet as he waited impatiently for his passengers to follow his example. Snickering, obviously more amused than anything, Prussia did as he was told for once, joining Germany on the side of the road with a proud smile that his younger brother was very tempted to smack off of his face. Sighing loudly and theatrically, Austria followed suit, closing the passenger's door behind him and strolling around the front of the vehicle, giving Germany a look that would make passersby assume that the blond was the one inconveniencing him and not the other way around.

"All _right_," Germany repeated, staring the two of them down. "We're not moving going a centimeter further until we can _all_ agree to act civil in my car."

Prussia elbowed the visibly bored aristocrat in the ribs, pointing out that, "I guess we're going to be late for that invasion, then," in a stage whisper. Germany rolled his eyes.

"I can't walk home from here," Austria noted sourly, earning himself a disappointed frown from the Nation in charge of getting them to their respective battles on time.

"You can't walk home from anywhere," Prussia taunted, rendering it Austria's turn to harness the glower power.

"We're miles out of Berlin by now," he continued haughtily, his expression, turned up nose and all, making it crystal clear that he resented the comment but didn't want to acknowledge it.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about," Germany cut in uselessly. "Prussia, stop bothering Austria. Austria, let him borrow the damn pillow for a little while. Would that really be so hard?"

The two combatants turned on him instantly. "It isn't _borrowing_ if he didn't ask to begin with," the brunette argued savagely. "You both need to learn to be kinder to your _guests_."

"You're not a _guest_ if nobody wants you here!" Prussia shot back, not missing a beat, mimicking the noble's condescending and scolding tone of voice.

"I believe we discussed this-," Austria began angrily.

"I believe we did," Germany interrupted, not letting him get another flame-fanning word out of his arrogant little mouth. Austria cocked his eyebrows at his foe, an unspoken _Your move, Prussia_ hanging in the air.

"I think we could give it few more minutes on the table," Prussia gave his brother a "stay out of this" glare, hands on his hips, just daring Austria to oblige him.

"In that case-,"

"I am going to _run the two of you down with my car_ if you don't _zip_ _your_ _lips_ right this instant," Germany ordered, having lost his grip on the absolute tippy-tail end of his rope. Prussia and Austria fell silent, glancing at him out of the corners of their eyes.

Germany's older brother frowned and raised his eyebrow worriedly at Austria. _You know, I think he just might be serious._

Austria tipped his head to the side. _I propose a temporary truce in the interest of avoiding the need to scrub tire tracks off of my coat._

Prussia shrugged slightly. _Fine, if you agree not to act so stuck-up and poncy._

Austria released a little sigh. _Only if you agree to leave my hair alone_.

"Can I keep the pillow?"

"For the remainder of the trip, I suppose that much couldn't hurt."

"Deal?"

"Only if I don't have to shake your hand. I'm certain you haven't washed it."

Germany watched them and wondered what the heck had just happened. Becoming even more bewildered when the two men wordlessly climbed back into the car, he decided that it was better to just go with it before they started arguing again. Honestly, he'd hate to restart the glorious Austro-Prussian War of the Pillow over something as trivial as a, "So you're going to get along now, right?" or an "I'm sorry, but was that some sort of ancient, proto-sign language or something?" No matter how much he wanted to know the answer to both questions.

He joined them in the car, retaking the wheel and pressing gently down on the gas pedal. Silence was golden, he thought happily as a good many miles passed without incident. As they neared nearing the border, however, he began to wrestle with another problem, and when they were getting too close to avoid stirring up trouble, he had no choice but to regretfully break the silence. "Austria, you'll be fighting in the Netherlands." That wasn't the issue.

The aristocrat sighed. "If I must," he said, accepting the assignment despite his obvious dislike of it.

"Prussia, I want you to-,"

"I'm fighting France," Germany's brother cut in loudly from his sprawled position on the back seat, not letting the blond even finish his sentence.

And here was the problem that nobody had wanted to bring up. The elephant in the room, or, for the sake of accuracy, the Mercedes-Benz 170. A gift from his boss and the love of Germany's life, as it were. The country sighed tiredly; he had anticipated this fight. "I know you _want_ to, but our boss wants me to-,"

"Like _hell_," Prussia snapped, sitting upright, deadly serious, "am I going to miss out on this. No way. Not happening. I'm beating the snot out of that-."

"It's not my plan," Germany reminded him quietly. "But it's _the _plan, Prussia."

"Screw the plan," Prussia told him authoritatively, crossing his arms.

His brother sighed and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He knew and _had_ known that Prussia would want to take on the European power, but their boss had other ideas, preferring to have the primary Nation in the main fight. He stopped tapping, an idea occurring to him. "Prussia?"

"What?"

Germany winced at the tone; his big brother's mood had deteriorated completely in that quick minute. "Do you remember Rommel?"

There was a pause. "_Infantry Attacks_. Battle of Longarone. Blue Max. That Rommel?"

"As opposed to?" Austria asked sarcastically as he stared lazily out the window. He was summarily ignored.

"That's the one," Germany confirmed, sensing that he was getting somewhere with this plan of attack. "Would it be so bad if you were fighting with him?" He glanced hopefully over his shoulder.

Prussia gave this serious consideration. "I guess not…" he surrendered eventually, displeasure still evident but noticeably lessened, much to his little brother's relief. Germany certainly hadn't been looking for a fight, but he had been expecting Prussia to pitch much more of a fit. Thank goodness he'd managed to work things out peacefully. Crisis averted; now they could focus on the _real_ war.

"I'll drop you off first, then," the blond said with much more cheer than he'd had in a while.

"Leave my pillow in the car," Austria ordered, sitting up, feeling the need for clarification.

Prussia snorted, obviously planning on doing otherwise. "You know, I don't think I will," he said, breaking out into another evil grin.

Germany's good mood promptly evaporated.

-o-

_May 8, 1940  
L__ondon, England_

England and France had pretty much given up on their strategy meeting, and by given up, I mean they'd smashed the idea to pieces, tossed it out the window, and not given it another thought since. They were much more concerned the absolutely _vital_ task of taking the upcoming war against Germany and blowing it _completely_ out of proportion. Sure, it was a serious matter, but it wasn't the end of the world, which is the direction that France and England's conversation seemed to be headed. The word "apocalypse" hadn't come up yet, but it was only a matter of time.

They knew on some level that the conclusions they were jumping to were getting increasingly unlikely, but they were so busy working themselves into a panic that they didn't quite care, thanks to a combination of nerves, a misguided attempt at trying to cope with the idea of fighting Germany and Prussia _again_, and the general insanity that tended to happen when two or more Nations were in the same room. Maybe this insane panic was just the natural result of spending a couple decades trying to avoid a war, and then having the war happen despite their best efforts. Who knows? The point is that, for whatever reason, the two of them seemed determined to convince themselves that they had absolutely no chance at victory in the war they were about to fight.

As pre-war encouragement strategies go, it was somewhat lacking in, well, encouragement, and most people probably wouldn't consider this kind of negativity to be a very good idea, but for the aforementioned combination of reasons, France and England didn't seem to realize this. Or maybe they just didn't care.

"They've _definitely_ planned for any move we could possibly come up with," England said, and France nodded in agreement. "And probably a lot of moves we haven't even thought of. Unless a miracle happens, there's no way we're going to win this war!"

"They won't_ let_ a miracle happen!" France exclaimed. "They've planned for _everything_, remember? Anything we do is going to play right into their hands! We're going to lose and they're going to kill us and we're going to _die_."

Apparently, France and England were not only too distracted to realize that repeatedly insisting that they were going to lose was a bad strategy, they were also too distracted with the prospect of their impending doom to realize that France's last statement had been a little redundant, since getting killed and dying generally go together, and don't actually need to be stated separately. They were _also_ too distracted to realize that maybe if they wanted to _avoid_ getting killed and dying, they should start planning how to avoid losing.

"They could be planning _anything_, and there's no way we're going to be ready to counter it because they're going to anticipate anything we do to stop them and already have a plan in place to beat us! We can't win this!"

They probably would have gone on like this for the rest of their meeting had they not been interrupted by a car pulling into the driveway. England looked out the window curiously. "My boss is here. Why is…does he seriously not trust us not to kill each other?"

"Well, we did try," France pointed out. "So his concerns might be justified."

England was forced to agree as he led the way downstairs to the front door, and opened it to admit his boss into the house. "Hello, sir," he said. "I'm assuming you didn't trust us not to kill each other."

"Well, I just thought I'd check on the two of you and see how your meeting was going," Churchill said, which pretty much translated as _yes, I thought I'd make sure the two of you didn't kill each other, as that would make fighting the war rather difficult_.

England and France looked at each other briefly, then back at England's boss. "We're going to _die_," England stated bluntly. France nodded in agreement.

Churchill looked rather confused by his Nation's assessment of the situation. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"Germany, Prussia, and Austria have been planning this war obsessively. They've got to have planned out every single move we could make and worked out how to counter it," England explained.

"What makes you think they've been planning the war obsessively?"

"Because they spend every waking moment planning out how to beat us," France stated matter-of-factly.

Oddly enough, Churchill didn't seem all that convinced. "And they're doing this because…?" he asked skeptically.

"Because constantly planning the war is about the only way Prussia and Austria can be in the same house without killing each other," France said.

"And apparently coming up with the absolute worst possible scenario is the only way the two of you can be in the same house without killing each other," Churchill retorted. "You two _do_ recognize that your assessment of the situation is a little far-fetched, right?"

France and England looked at each other. "Well…they _are_ obsessed with revenge for the last war," England tried.

"But if they're anything like you two, they probably _do_ argue while planning the war," Churchill pointed out. "So they probably get about as much accomplished as you seem to have gotten done."

England and France looked away guiltily. "It's not completely our fault we didn't get anything done. America interrupted with a stupid phone call about heroes or some such nonsense," France pointed out, conveniently ignoring the fact that nothing had gotten done before or after that phone call either.

Churchill sighed. "Both of you stop working yourselves into a panic, go back upstairs, and get something accomplished."

"Yes sir," England said, sounding rather like a child who had been sent to complete some sort of horrific, dreaded, end-of-life-as-we-know-it task like dusting or, worse, picking up his toys.

"And you'd better have something to show for this meeting by the end of the day," Churchill added. "_Other_ than unrealistic assessments of Germany's war preparations, I mean."

England and France looked awkwardly at each other. "Right, let's try this again," England sighed.

-o-

_May 8, 1940  
__Near the German-Belgian Border_

By the time Germany reached his first stop, he was brainstorming excuses to give his boss for whenever someone found Prussia and Austria's strangled dead bodies on the side of the road, because he was fairly certain that his patience was going to run out within a few more minutes and he was going to snap and murder his allies and leave their bodies in a ditch somewhere. They could _walk_ to the invasion once they woke up. Well, Prussia could walk to the invasion; Austria would more likely try to walk home, fail spectacularly, and somehow end up at Canada's house or some similarly implausible feat that wouldn't surprise Germany in the least. Or, for that matter, _upset_ him in the least; the further away Austria ended up, the longer it would be before Austria and Prussia started another argument.

The excuse he'd settled on as the most likely to work was to claim that France had ambushed them. Heck, it would even give the invasion a great propaganda boost. Strangling Prussia and Austria and leaving their bodies in a ditch somewhere could work out in everyone's favor. Well, everyone except Prussia and Austria, who had given Germany enough of a headache with their bickering that he didn't quite include them in "everyone" anymore. They got to go in their own special category of people to be destroyed for the public good. Or maybe just for the good of anyone who had to deal with Germany, whose patience tended to go down the drain when he had a headache.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on your viewpoint) Germany reached his destination before he found a ditch suitable for tossing Prussia and Austria's bodies into. So instead of strangling the two of them, Germany brought the car to a stop, parked it, and started to get out.

"Did we pull over so you can yell at us for arguing again, or are we finally there?" Prussia asked, looking around as he got out the car.

"We're finally here. Get your stuff. Austria, you can either come with us or stay here; we shouldn't be more than a few minutes."

"I'll stay here, then," Austria said, and Germany was just about to start mentally celebrating when Austria changed his mind. "Wait, Prussia, are you…I only said you could keep the pillow for the car ride! You are _not_ taking it with you!"

Prussia, who did indeed have Austria's pillow under one arm as he swung a backpack of equipment over his shoulder, smirked at Austria. "Oh yes I am," he taunted. "Unless you wanna fight me for it."

"You are _not_ fighting over a pillow," Germany tried to interrupt, but Austria and Prussia were having none of it, and proceeded to completely ignore him as Austria lunged at Prussia and Prussia took off running for the other side of the car, laughing his obnoxious, unholy laugh all the way. Germany groaned and tried again as Austria took off after Prussia, demanding the return of his pillow. "Both of you _cut it out_!" Germany snapped, but was ignored for the second time. He tried to snatch the pillow out of Prussia's hands as the silver-haired Nation bolted past him, but failed, as Prussia had expected such a maneuver and swatted Germany's hand away, then dumped his backpack onto the ground for easier movement. "Prussia!" Germany snapped, but got about as much of a response as his other attempts at ending the Austro-Prussian War of the Pillow had.

"Having problems?" a voice asked from behind him.

Germany groaned. "Well, I drove here with two four year olds, and one of them is my big brother," he answered, as the chase scene devolved into actual combat.

Erwin Rommel looked curiously at Prussia and Austria's battle. "Are they fighting over a pillow?" he asked, looking utterly confused by the scene in front of him.

"Prussia stole it from Austria's room so he could sleep in the car," Germany explained. "They've been fighting like this for the entire car ride, which actually defeated the purpose of bringing Austria's pillow along with them anyway, since neither of them actually _slept. _ And now that we've arrived here, Prussia is insisting that he wants to take the pillow with him to the invasion."

"That's…um…"

"Yeah. I'm looking forward to getting out of here so that they'll be too far away from each other to argue," Germany admitted.

"Which one am I getting?" Rommel asked. Germany got the distinct impression that Rommel was praying that the answer not be Prussia.

"Prussia," Germany said, somewhat apologetically.

"Which of them would that be?"

"Silver hair."

"Oh." Rommel was silent for a few seconds. "Well…he does seem to be winning…" he added, in a sort of _let's pretend this cloud has a silver lining_ way.

"Don't worry, he should settle down once Austria and I leave and he doesn't have anyone else to fight with. You two should actually get along pretty well once Austria's out of the equation. You both seem to think along the same lines in terms of strategy, although you may have to rein in some of his more risky ideas. Oh, and now that I think about it, don't be surprised if he asks for your autograph. He's read your book about a hundred or so times. He's quite a fan."

Rommel did not appear particularly enthusiastic about this news, probably since the fan in question was currently holding both the pillow and Austria's glasses out of the freeloading noble's reach while kicking Austria in the shins as Gilbird flew circles around the two of them, chirping up a storm, which only seemed to be encouraging them.

Germany sighed. "Both of you _KNOCK IT OFF_," he yelled. Austria and Prussia briefly glanced at him, then went back to their fight, only for Prussia to do a double-take a second later, upon realizing who was standing with Germany. He quickly stopped kicking Austria and handed back the stolen glasses, trying to look at least somewhat more respectable and less childish. Austria took the glasses when Prussia offered them, looking utterly baffled (and more than a little amused) by this sudden change in behavior.

Prussia, meanwhile, hid Austria's pillow behind his back and did his best to look serious. It failed rather spectacularly, however, thanks to the thoroughly awestruck expression on his face.

"Prussia," Germany said, in his best _I'm trying to forget the insanity that just happened_ voice, "this is Erwin Rommel. Rommel, this is my older brother Prussia. I think you two should get along pretty well, since—"

He broke off as Austria tried to take advantage of Prussia's distraction to steal back his pillow. Prussia proved himself less distracted than he'd seemed, and yanked the pillow out of Austria's reach just in time, giving Austria a dirty look in the process.

"_Prussia_," Germany said in a warning tone. "Put the pillow in the car and get your things."

Prussia, apparently trying to make up for his less than stellar first impression, actually did as he was told without complaining or arguing for once, depositing the pillow in the backseat of the car, swinging his backpack over his shoulder once more, and leaning against the car, trying to look normal and casual and sane.

"Thank you," Germany said, back to his _trying to forget the insanity_ voice. "Austria, are you ready to go?"

"I am now," Austria said, looking rather smug about having won the Austro-Prussian War of the Pillow.

"Good. Well…Rommel, Prussia, good luck. Prussia, _behave_." Prussia looked rather put-out by this, as he was still trying to undo his disastrous first impression, but in Germany's mind (and probably Austria's too), the warning was entirely necessary. "And hopefully we'll see each other soon."

"Kick France in the balls for me," was Prussia's immediate response. "Seriously. And make sure he knows it's from me."

Germany rolled his eyes, but promised that, should a situation present itself where this was a reasonable thing to do, he would honor Prussia's request. And with that, he and Austria got into the car, and started to drive off.

"Hey, wait a…" Austria began, looking into the backseat. "Germany, hang on."

"What is it?"

"He stole back my pillow!"

"I'm not turning around for that. We're already behind schedule!" Germany said. "I'll buy you a new pillow when we get home, just let him have that one."

"No! It's the principle of the thing. It's my pillow, he stole it, and I want it back."

Germany groaned. "Austria, I'm not turning around so you can get into another fistfight with Prussia over a pillow," he said as a glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that Prussia had in fact stolen Austria's pillow, and he was now holding it under one arm as he waved good-bye. Rommel stood next to him, clearly dreading the prospect of working with this nutjob, and Germany found himself desperately hoping that he was right in his prediction that Prussia would start acting a bit more sane once Austria was out of yelling range.

As the car started around the corner, Germany glanced out the rearview mirror once more and saw that he was probably in luck, or at least something close to it: Prussia had stopped waving good-bye like a grinning, hyperactive weirdo and had turned to Rommel, his body language uncharacteristically awkward, and Germany got the distinct impression that Prussia was in fact asking Rommel for his autograph.

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Stuff:

- Hey, look, nothing historical happened, so we don't have to write historical notes this time! I mean, everyone already knows who Rommel is, right? The Desert Fox and all that? Good. Then I can just skip to the Authory Stuff.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: So, we wrote a chapter that contains pretty much no history whatsoever. But it was fun to write (well, most of it was, at least), and soon the invasion will begin. (Great, now I have to go hunt down The Rommel Papers in the library.) This part of the war has always been fun, so I'm looking forward to it.L

Warsaw's Note: I have this problem where I nickname fictional characters really strange things. It's not my fault; weird stuff just _pops out_ and then it _sticks_. There's some shows that I haven't called the characters by their real names..._ever_. Like Crowley from _Good Omens_ is Muffins (which comes from Crowleymuffins, which came from...nowhere) and Crowley from Supernatural is Cupcakes, so they match. And Mycroft from Sherlock is Waffles...and I'm not really sure why. And, somewhat recently, I decided that I was going to _actually_ sit down and watch Merlin the right way, instead of just scattered episodes here and there, and five seconds after we've met Arthur, out of my mouth comes the phrase, "Pop Tarts." You can't call King Arthur friggin' Pop Tarts! It's just not done! What's wrong with me...?

**GUYS! GUUUUYS! Remember when we said we were dying of _busy_ and _school_. Reviews would make it sooo much better. Hey...i****s it wrong that I can't use the phrase "so much better" without the song from the Legally Blonde musical popping into my head? Yeah, it is, isn't it? ****...You can always tell when Warsaw writes the notes, can't you?**

**Just to let you guys know, by the way: Chapter eleven was from the week before last, when we didn't post anything because we suck. This chapter is, according to our schedule, the one we should've posted yesterday. Yeah, okay, _now_ we're done.**


	13. All Too Much Faith

_Hey guys! Guess what! We're not dead! We just had a whole lot of drama going on, so we kinda dropped off the face of the planet for a few weeks. But we're going to update twice a week until we get caught up on our schedule. (Well, you may or may not hear from us next week, since we may or may not end up in North Carolina without internet access for a week, but if that happens, we'll post both of next week's chapters together when we get home.)_

_And Hetalia still isn't ours. Shocker, right?_

* * *

**Chapter 13: All Too Much Faith**

_May 10, 1940  
__Rotterdam, Netherlands_

Being suddenly awoken by the intense need to vomit is probably the worst possible way to start a day, so it should really surprise no one that Netherlands was not in a particularly good mood by the time he found himself fighting Austria, who wasn't exactly in the best of moods himself, not helped by the fact that he had never really been much of a morning person. And naturally, when two people who are both in a bad mood meet and have to interact, it only makes the situation worse as the bad moods bounce off of each other and come back stronger than before. Whenever there are two bad moods in the same general area, homicidal urges tend to follow very quickly.

Fortunately, unlike most mornings in which people have to remain at least somewhat civil regardless of how they feel about the person they're dealing with, there was a war on at the moment, so homicidal urges were actually encouraged, which did make the situation slightly better. After all, when you're in one of those moods where all you want to do is smash things and yell at people, shooting at the source of the problem tends to go a long way toward solving the problem. (But don't try it at home. It's a lot more trouble than it's worth at the breakfast table.)

"I was supposed to be _neutral_," Netherlands grumbled as he shot at Austria, hoping to put a stop to this invasion before Austria and the troops that had come with him could get a decent foothold in Rotterdam. Judging by Austria's expression, Netherlands wasn't the only one who didn't want to be here. Austria didn't look like he had much of a burning desire to get a decent foothold in Rotterdam. He looked like he'd have preferred to be at home, playing the piano. Unfortunately, however, Germany had somehow managed to get Austria to take part in the invasion, which meant that the fastest way for Austria to get home was to win, so regardless of if he wanted to be there or not, Austria was definitely not going to do any of this halfway. Not when piano playing hung in the balance.

Austria responded to Netherlands' bullet with one of his own, coupled with an indignant glare that would have been much more suited to a situation where Austria was the one getting invaded instead of the one doing the invading. It's generally accepted that shooting at invaders is the logical response, particularly when they're shooting at you. It's also generally accepted that the person invading without any sort of provocation is the one being rude, while the person randomly getting invaded is reacting correctly by shooting back. Therefore Austria had no justification whatsoever for looking at Netherlands the way people usually looked at Prussia when he was being obnoxious. Of course, the lack of justification wasn't about to stop Austria from acting like an aristocrat. And, of course, the aristocrat is always right, even when it makes no sense.

Netherlands wondered how exactly Germany and Prussia had managed to put up with Austria for as long as they had. Clearly they had developed some kind of superhuman tolerance in the past few years.

Netherlands, however, did not have superhuman tolerance, so when Austria glared at him like he was the rude one, Netherlands got ticked off and shot at him some more, unfortunately without managing to hit him. Austria may have been an annoying and pompous aristocrat, but that didn't mean he couldn't handle himself on the battlefield, and like most Nations, Austria was more than capable of dodging a bullet the instant before it was fired.

The situation continued along those lines for a while: Netherlands fired at Austria, Austria fired at Netherlands, neither of them managed to hit the other, and both of them grew more and more frustrated with the situation as time went on.

Finally, Netherlands managed to get in the first successful shot. It didn't cause any serious injury; in fact it wasn't too much more than a graze. Still, Austria was bleeding now, and knowing that fact did wonders for Netherlands' mood, despite the fact that it also made Austria intensify the power of his Aristocratic Glare™.

Unfortunately, Netherlands' mood promptly evaporated when Austria achieved similar results with his return fire, having fired just before Netherlands managed to get completely out of the way. Netherlands muttered a few rather impolite words under his breath as he glanced at the wound in his side, decided that it wasn't life-threatening, just painful, and shot back at Austria with even greater determination to win this than before, both because he obviously didn't want to be invaded and because he was now taking this invasion about twenty times more personally than he had been before. Getting shot tends to have that effect on people. Netherlands and Austria continued their battle with renewed effort, albeit for different reasons, and the status remained quo until a sharp, sudden pain ripped through Netherlands's left arm near the shoulder. One strangled-sounding yelp later, Netherlands was giving Austria a glare that would have caused flowers to wither and small children to run away screaming. He fired at Austria, getting increasingly frustrated every time he missed, every time Austria dodged, and every time Austria shot back at him. It was too early in the day to deal with a firefight, and it was _definitely_ too early to deal with a bullet wound, although if dealing with a bullet wound was absolutely necessary, it could certainly be made more tolerable by giving Austria one to match. Maybe an extra one for good measure. Maybe a couple extra. The more the merrier, right?

Netherlands ignored Austria's annoyed, indignant glare, took careful aim, and fired again.

-o-

_May 12, 1940  
__The Meuse River, Belgium_

Belgium took a deep breath, closing her eyes just for a moment to try and calm herself down. She brushed some imaginary dust from her uniform sleeves and then let the lungful of air go free, opening her eyes and giving her head a quick shake, hoping to clear it.

The war had definitely arrived.

A couple of areal battles, some fighting at the border…already, Belgium was worried. To be honest, she had already _been_ worried, and increasingly so for the last, oh, year or two. But England and France had repeatedly assured her that nothing would happen, that they were taking care of it. Well, Belgium thought huffily, apparently _not_. Because here she was, blowing the bridges over the Meuse River to try and stop the Germans before they managed to advance any further.

England and France, _ha_. Belgium wondered how the great powers of Europe were doing now. She strongly suspected they were busy working themselves into a tizzy as the war moved closer to home. Yes, yes, they had tried so hard to avoid the war and here it was anyway. Belgium got that; she really did. But, the thing was, she'd _told_ them. Everyone had, but they'd been too blinded by their many, many arguments and what they wanted to see happen to really listen. Belgium had stood up in the meetings and flapped her arms at them, reminding them that she had some pretty useful ports if anyone happened to be planning an attack on the United Kingdom, so maybe they ought to do something about protecting them. In the end, though…

She hadn't been putting too much faith in France rising spectacularly to the occasion, but England…for goodness' sake, she trusted _him_. He'd come to her aid in the last war, hadn't he? All righteous anger and honor and promises and security, slightly adorable in all of his…well, no one actually dared to call it overcompensation for his unrulier, pirate-ier days, but that was what it probably was anyway. Because Germany had dared to attack a neutral Nation, yes, but more importantly someone under _his_ protection, and, oh, there would be _hell_ to pay.

But this time…this time he'd hardly seemed to notice her, offering up the token, "Thanks for your concerns," and moving right along, plowing on into other things with France at his side. And no matter how much it pained her, Belgium just had to say enough was enough one day and cut her losses, dropping back from their alliance as England and France continued their policy of repeating, "Well, I _suppose_ that _this_ is all right, but nothing else, do you hear me?" over and over in the desperate hopes that maybe Germany would somehow acquiesce. Germany was remilitarizing and all they saw fit to do was to waggle their pointer fingers disapprovingly and frown dangerously.

_Whoop-de-do_. Spare the rod and spoil the child, Belgium thought. Look, if that was how they prepared for war, then maybe she _was_ better off on their own.

Shame, though…

France had been furious, naturally, when Belgium had announced her neutrality. He had rather been counting on defenses in her country to help protect his own, after all. So it hadn't been much of a surprise that, after seeing that she wasn't planning to budge in her newfound noninvolvement, he'd snapped a bit and ejected her from the meeting, not that she hadn't been planning on leaving immediately, anyway. She'd politely chalked it up to the stress of trying to maintain peace on the Continent, but still, it had been uncalled for.

England had gone after her. Followed her down the hall, caught her sleeve, and then given her that _cursed_ kicked puppy look of his when she'd regretfully informed him that she wouldn't be having any more meetings with the Allies so as not to compromise her new policy of impartiality. At least he'd had the decency to be polite about his frustration.

She'd built up her defenses as the world sat back and watched Germany violate treaty after treaty, and she'd tried to get the necessary military force to back the fortifications mustered up, as well, but no. She _was_ neutral, after all.

In late April of 1937, England and France had showed up on her doorstep, declaring that they suddenly felt her protection very, very important. France had offered up an apology, but one that could have been worded in a less…icky way, as most things Belgium's irritating neighbor said. England had demanded that he take it back and apologize _properly_, and then a fight had broken out in the kitchen, and Belgium had just said and gone to make tea, because really, it was England and France. What else could you expect from setting those two up as allies?

Once she'd calmed the situation a bit, Belgium had sat the boys down and explained that she was pretty sure that Germany could kick both of their butts in a fair fight—militarily speaking, of course—so they'd need to work out a plan. Just in case, you know, because Belgium was still neutral… So they'd talked and argued and then talked some more and argued some more, and in the end they'd managed to scrape up something that was fairly feasible, at least by Belgium's standards, anyway. Of course, that was before a German plane had crash landed in her territory, carrying Germany's attack plans, which—oh, joy of joys—had included an attack through Belgium, occupying some useful launching points for further offensives.

Belgium had thought the whole thing to be a little bit on the fishy side. _Isn't this just a little too convenient_? she'd worried, but England and France had taken it seriously enough. So Belgium had taken matters into her own hands, done a bit of scouting and snooping of her own, and concluded that Germany had a different plan—whether he'd changed it since the incident or had been planning it all along. She wasn't sure which, but what she _was_ sure about, or at least reasonably so, was that Germany was going to attack through the Ardennes and, if all went well for them, they would surround the Allied troops and take them out.

If that was how things panned out, France's plan would end up putting Belgium in some very real danger, and the same went for England and France's troops. So, like any good, reasonably nice person would, she'd hurried off to warn them.

_Apparently_, an attack through the Ardennes was impossible. _Apparently_, Germany would obviously come up with something less insane. _Apparently_, Belgium was just on edge because of the increasingly tense climate in Europe, and that she really needn't worry because the Allies had a plan and they knew what they were doing.

_Apparently_, England and France were just a couple of giant douche-nozzles in the end. Clueless, stubborn, frustrating douche-nozzles.

Belgium had been right, not that she was particularly happy about it or anything. The next time she had the opportunity to say "I told you so," she hoped that it wasn't precipitated by an invasion of her country that she wasn't prepared to defend against. She strongly suspected that the Allies were screwed, or at least in for one very bloody, very painful, _very_ nasty fight.

Things were getting ugly in Europe, and she also suspected that they were going to get even worse. And Belgium's suspicions had a pretty impressive track record for correctness as of late. So, here she was in retreat, hoping that France's surprisingly substantial offering of troops would be able to get her out of this mess. England had pitched in too, of course, but not as much as she'd hoped, and frankly, Belgium was beginning to feel more than a bit disillusioned with that unhelpful little bugger, that so-called gentleman.

But there was still some time for Belgium and France and England to turn this around, right? Still time for a fresher, cleverer plan, a surprising new tactic, and valiant, game-changing stand, wasn't there? Still time for someone to step up and really _do_ something, to protect her country and everybody else's?

Belgium would've liked to think there was, but her sneaking suspicions wouldn't let her have all too much faith in that.

-o-

_May 12, 1940  
__Ardennes Forest, France_

Somehow, Prussia had gotten his way on his risky attack plan, and Germany had to admit, it wasn't actually as much of a disaster as he'd expected it to be. Either France was a lot slower than Germany had anticipated, or France was a lot more surprised by Team Germany's tactics than Germany had anticipated, or else maybe England had just thrown one of his rock-hard scones at France's head and caused some brain damage. Maybe all of these reasons, maybe some other reasons that Germany wasn't thinking of. It didn't matter. The point was that, despite Germany's reservations, things were actually going according to plan. Despite Germany's long list of the many ways that things could potentially go awry, everything was working out just fine.

Well, close to fine, at least. There was one problem with the plan: it required sneaking a whole lot of tanks through the Ardennes. A _lot_ of tanks. And while the actual task of getting the tanks across the terrain was working out better than Germany had anticipated, there was still one big, glaring problem: the sheer number of tanks was becoming problematic. Traffic jams and congestion were slowing down the operation considerably, and giving Germany a passionate hatred of mountains in the process. And a passionate hatred of forests, and a passionate hatred of tanks, and a passionate hatred of this plan.

However, all of these passionate hatreds didn't actually _matter_ because while they made this task somewhat more annoying, they paled in comparison to Germany's passionate hatred of France, and the thought of defeating the arrogant, perverted bane of Germany's existence was more than enough to make lesser hatreds seem utterly inconsequential.

Germany hated France, and had hated him for as long as he could remember, with the exception of a very brief period where the general dislike of the Nation that Prussia and Austria were at war with had yet to become personal. Then France had defeated Prussia at the battle of Jena, occupied Prussia's country, and dragged its personification off to Paris. Germany, not yet a country, physically and mentally a ten year old kid, and chronologically not even a year old, had gotten away, barely, and had hidden out at Austria's house for a few years, until France defeated Austria and included _hand over Prussia's little brother_ in the peace terms. Austria hadn't had much choice in the matter, and thus France had dragged Germany off to Paris to use as leverage in order to keep Prussia in line. That was the point where life had become a living hell for Germany, and the point where Prussia's life had become even more of a living hell than it already had been, which was saying something. France had _not_ been a particularly nice person to work for at the time.

Germany still had nightmares about it sometimes. He suspected that Prussia did too.

After Napoleon had been defeated, France had gone back to what was apparently his usual self. This was all fine and good for most people, but Germany's less-than-stellar first impression of France had kind of stuck around. The new France (well, really the old France, but new to Germany) may have been a whole lot nicer than the less-than-sane version that Germany was used to, but a first impression that traumatizing doesn't go away overnight, and France and Germany never did grow any more fond of each other. On a good day, they could hold a civil conversation without attempting to kill each other. On a bad day…well, on a bad day, there was a world war going on, and they were trying to murder each other. And that wasn't even the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario was when the war was over and France was forcing Germany to take the blame for everything.

Today, however, Germany was on his way to get revenge for that worst case scenario, not to mention for a whole lot of other things. So even though Germany was caught in the most nerve-wracking traffic jam ever—this plan was going entirely too well, after all, traffic jam notwithstanding, so Germany was naturally expecting France to attack him out of nowhere any minute now—he was in an oddly good mood, completely and totally ready to make France pay for…well, for a long list of things, really. He'd been waiting for this for pretty much all of his life. More than a century of waiting was about to pay off; Germany was finally going to completely _crush_ France. And England, for that matter, but crushing England wasn't quite as important. Germany didn't like England, but really only because of the last war. He certainly looked forward to defeating England, but nowhere near as much as he was looking forward to having France groveling on the ground before him.

(It suddenly occurred to Germany that all his talk about defeating France was starting to make him sound like Prussia.)

Germany had absolutely no doubt that he would be able to defeat France. Particularly not if France had yet to so much as make an appearance in this war. Most likely, it was because France's military was horribly, hilariously unprepared for Prussia's new strategy. Germany may have had his doubts at first, but he had to admit, aside from the traffic jam, the plan seemed to be working. France wasn't going to know what hit him, and Germany had to admit, he rather liked that idea. Just defeating France in the war would have been enough for Germany, but if this plan worked, France was going to be completely _crushed_ in a matter of weeks. Conquering France's country was good enough on its own. Humiliating France himself, leaving him utterly _defeated_ in every sense of the word? _That_ was something Germany had been dreaming of doing ever since he was a kid, ever since he'd been forced to flee Berlin with nothing more than a hastily-packed bag of essential items and the stuffed bear that Prussia had given him before leaving for the war.

Compared to the prospect of seeing his wildest dreams finally come true, the traffic jam that was slowing things down seemed oddly unimportant.

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Stuff:

- So finally, we get to the invasion. First off is the Battle of Rotterdam, in which German forces attempt to capture Rotterdam, which was _certainly_ not obvious from the name of the battle. The battle lasted from May 10 to May 14, Netherlands put up a good fight, but Team Germany eventually wins.

- Considering Belgium's scene was basically nothing but exposition...you can probably figure out what happened. Because, you know, all I did was tell you what happened. 'Cause I'm a loser and stuff. Also, did anyone get and England/Belgium vibe off that scene? Because I did, but then, I see shipping EVERYWHERE. That's just me. (Love from Warsaw!)

- And meanwhile, Germany is sneaking through the Ardennes. France thought that it would be impossible to get tanks through there, which is why he's not attacking or anything. France is pretty unprepared for this whole strategy, for that matter.

- Not quite a historical note, but the references to what France was like during the Napoleonic Wars might need some explaining. Basically, we're working under the assumption that the French Revolution and the whole everyone-losing-their-head thing that came with it sort of did a number on France's sanity, so he really wasn't a nice person to be around when he was fighting half of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: Um...hey, everyone. I'm so incredibly sorry for going so long without updating! I had no free time to write for the last two weeks of school, then Warsaw had no free time to write for _her_ last two weeks of school, so we're just finishing the chapter now. But we're going to get caught up on our schedule, I promise! Please don't be mad!

Warsaw's Note: So I got a perfect score on my American History end-of-course exam. Which is different from the final exam, by the way, because America has some sort of a freaky test fetish and all American schools do is test you on how to take tests and then test you some more. At least, Louisiana schools do, anyway... I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm mostly self-taught when it comes to history. In August, I'm starting my senior year and believe it or not, I've never been taught the American Civil War in school. This includes the American History class I just finished. Ugh. But yeah, perfect score. As in, didn't miss a single question. As in, I'm awesome. Yeppers. Sorry...just thought I'd squee...


	14. Bragging Rights

_Disclaimer: I can't even think of a clever way to say WE DO NOT OWN anymore, ugh. What kind of a writer am I? One prone to typos, I guess, given that I had to rewrite "clever" three times because I kept writing "cleaver" instead. Maybe it was some sort of a Freudian slip, because I love cleavers..._

**Chapter Fourteen: Bragging Rights**

_May 15, 1940  
__Amsterdam, the Netherlands_

Austria may not have liked to fight wars, but he certainly did like to win them. He supposed most people felt that way about war; the grim and gritty bits were no fun at all, but the hard-earned victory was worth it, at least most of the time. Winning meant that you got whatever you wanted from the other guy. It meant those all-important bragging rights and easy arguments in your own favor for years to come. You know, "Oh, I'm sorry, but you seem to be forgetting how easily I trounced you back in 1066?" or 1781 or 1815 or whenever it was. "I kicked your butt this one time, so obviously my plan is better than your plan! Ha ha ha!" Plus, winning meant that you got to feel proud of yourself and your troops, because all of that hard work you'd put into the aforementioned "grim and gritty bits" had just paid off.

The thing was, though, that Austria didn't get any bragging rights this time—he supposed that technically he did, but his conscience wouldn't let him go anywhere near them, even if he wanted to. No bragging rights, and no sense of pride in his work, either. What he did get was someone else to do chores around the house and an uncomfortable, guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach. A little voice nagging at the back of his mind. The problem was that, as far as Austria was concerned, he hadn't won. Not this time. He'd just been handed a victory. It felt like cheating, and Austria did not approve of that.

The plan had been to threaten to bomb Rotterdam to convince the Netherlands to surrender the city. But the officials had stretched out the negotiations and the attack had been pushed back. At least, it was supposed to have been. The information had been sent to the Luftwaffe, but Rotterdam had been bombed anyway.

Austria was not happy with this. He would be having a little chat with the people responsible for this mix-up, and if they did not have a very good excuse, they were going to be…sorry. Extremely sorry. Because when Austria had "little chats" with people, he drew himself up, dropped the "freeloading" half of his "freeloading noble" moniker, and proceeded to put the target of his irritation so firmly back into their place that they cried. It was safe to say that Austria was going to get to the bottom of this, yes, but that little side quest was going to have to wait. He had a surrender to accept, after all. Not to mention an apology to make.

Austria cleared his throat, making the Netherlands look up from the document that he was glaring down at. Inevitable or not, most Nations were still awfully keen to know the terms of their country's surrender. "Listen," Austria sighed, tapping his fingers uncomfortably on the desk. Oh, how he hated having to apologize, especially when he should have been reveling in his latest victory. Still, it was the _proper_ thing to do, and Austria was all about proper. The personification of the Netherlands stared back at him, trying so hard not to say something that would get him into trouble with his new boss, even though he clearly had a few choice words in mind. Technically, Austria wasn't his boss _just_ yet, but neither of them was silly enough to think that such an outcome was anything short of definite. Austria made a face. Awkward situations did not suit him very well, he thought unhappily. "Well." All right; the silence had been broken. That was a start. "About the...er, well, the incident at Rotterdam."

The Netherlands twitched. Austria stopped tapping his fingers and relocated them to the handle of his teacup. It didn't actually make him feel any less uncomfortable, but appearances were everything in politics, weren't they? He raised the cup to his lips.

"I plan," the noble began again, "to have a very long talk with the man responsible for that little...mix-up."

"Mix-up," the Netherlands repeated emotionlessly. His eye twitched again. Austria got the message.

"Mistake," he corrected, clearing his throat again. He was going to make sure that Germany knew just how irritated with this situation he was the next time he saw the man; oh, yes, Germany would pay. Austria sighed and set down his drink. "Look, Netherlands, I know it doesn't mean much, given our current...circumstances, but I do hope that you understand that-."

"You're apologizing?" the Netherlands asked. The look on his face was unreadable, and Austria was not a fan of things that he couldn't interpret.

"Yes. Humbly and without any ulterior motive, I assure you." _Ew_. Although what he could possibly have been looking to gain, Austria didn't know. The formal surrender would happen whether Netherlands signed it or not; the Nations' version of the document was really just a formality. Governments were so very fond of paperwork, after all.

The Netherlands watched Austria, who was trying not to look as ill at ease as he felt, for a short while, and then gave a small nod of recognition before returning his attention to the small stack of papers in front of him. He flipped through a few pages with a look of obvious distaste, eyes skimming the words, and after a minute or so, he asked, "You didn't have anything to do with this, right?"

Austria sat up a little bit straighter. "Of course not," he snapped, offended at the very thought. The Netherlands raised his eyes to give his conqueror a Look and Austria calmed himself. "Of course not," he repeated with much less venom. "You have my word," he added, hoping it would help.

It seemed to. The Netherlands gave another small nod and returned to browsing what was left of the document before adding, however hesitantly, his signature to the appropriate places. He pushed the papers across the desk towards Austria as though he never wanted to see them again-and he probably didn't-before adding a low, "Thanks."

"Of course," Austria said offhandedly, flicking through the pages to make sure everything was just right. It all seemed to be in order. Good, that was one less problem he had to deal with. "All right, now I suppose you'll have to go pack your things before we leave." Preparing for your loss before it happened, even if it was just a precaution or a way of making sure you still got what you needed if you were killed, was considered really bad luck amongst the Nations, not to mention a bit tacky. It wasn't exactly a show of faith in your people, after all. Austria pushed back his chair and got to his feet as the Netherlands did the same. The sooner they packed, the sooner they could go home—or back to _Germany's_ home, anyway. That meant that Austria could trade his gun for his piano, his uniform for his old, tasteful coat, and the aggressive military men for _Hungary_, who rather made up for all of the discomfort of the last week.

Yes, the sooner Austria was back at the house, the better…

-o-

_May 16, 1940  
__Berlin, Germany_

Hungary liked Poland. She really did. That didn't mean that, in the right circumstances, she couldn't be driven to wanting to strangle him. Like right now, for instance.

When Germany had asked her to stay in Berlin and keep an eye on Poland to make sure he didn't try anything while Team Germany was away, Hungary had expected Poland to attempt to take advantage of this to do whatever he could to screw up Germany's plans. She had known she would have to keep a _very_ close eye on him, and she had expected this task to become incredibly irritating at some point because she knew that when Poland didn't get bored with something within the first five minutes, he could be very, _very_ determined.

Of course, while determination can be an admirable trait in a person if they're on your side, the person who's supposed to put a stop to that determination might not be quite so favorably inclined toward it. There's a certain line between the admirable trait of determination and the annoying trait of stubbornness, and the position of that line is all in the eye of the beholder.

Hungary knew that once Poland got an idea to stick in his head for longer than a few minutes, it was nearly impossible to dislodge that idea, but she'd expected that after several days of having his plans thwarted, he'd eventually give up on his ideas of resistance, at least for a while. She had been wrong, which was why she'd been forced to pretty much follow Poland around the house for the past several days in order to put a stop to resistance attempt after resistance attempt after resistance attempt. And, equally annoying, once Poland had caught on to the fact that he wasn't going to get away with anything as long as Hungary was right behind him, Hungary had been forced to put a stop to escape attempt after escape attempt after…well, you get the idea.

By this point, Hungary was sorely tempted to just lock Poland in his room until Team Germany got home. But he'd only climb out the window if she tried that, so it wouldn't really help anything anyway.

Hungary sighed and headed downstairs as Poland locked himself in the upstairs bathroom. Just as she'd expected, she opened the front door just in time to hear a crunching sound and a loud yelp, and she rounded the corner of the house to see Poland climbing out of a rosebush, significantly more cut-up and bloody than he'd been when she had last seen him.

"You jumped into a _rosebush_?" Hungary asked, rhetorically but more than a little incredulously, trying not to laugh.

"I actually meant to crush Austria's new...whatsit…the orange flowers next to the rosebush that he's, like, weirdly attached to…"

Austria had recently taken charge of Germany's garden in an attempt to get Prussia to stop complaining about him being useless. He had made quite a number of improvements on the garden (and seemed to be attempting to transform the entire front yard into an elaborate garden) but Prussia had yet to take notice of this.

"They're called nasturtiums," Hungary said. "And you didn't land on them because you…slipped?" she guessed. Poland nodded, looking somewhat embarrassed, and Hungary snickered in spite of herself. "_That's_ a well thought out plan. Jump out the second story window into the flowers that are _right next to_ the one of the thorniest plants in the garden."

"Well if you weren't, like, stalking me through the house, I wouldn't have had to jump out the window of the only room you wouldn't follow me into," Poland retorted, wincing as he pulled a thorn out of his leg. "Great, and now this whole outfit's torn up."

"It's your own fault."

"Yeah, but I haven't got, like, a whole closet full of clothes to change into like I do at home." He perked up as a thought occurred to him. "Can I borrow your green skirt? Since I'm actually asking this time? And since you feel totally sorry for me because I'm all cut up and bleeding and stuff?" Poland put on his best puppy dog look and Hungary snorted in amusement.

"Fine, as long as you do something about the bleeding first. I don't want bloodstains on my skirt."

"And I don't want to wear a bloody skirt, so yeah, bandages first," Poland said. He picked a pale pink rose petal out of his hair and tossed it over his shoulder, then tried to hobble to the front door without irritating any of his new injuries. After a few steps, he caught on that this wasn't going to be possible if he wanted to get inside by the end of the week, so he forced himself to sacrifice comfort for speed as he headed into the house in search of medical supplies, wincing all the way. Hungary would have helped him, but she probably would have only made the problem worse, so she settled for holding the door open for him and shooing away the curious dogs.

It took a while, but Poland eventually finished cleaning the cuts and bandaging the ones likely to bleed on Hungary's clothes, and as promised, Hungary let him borrow the skirt and blouse he'd taken a liking to.

"So, are you done trying to cause trouble yet?" Hungary asked a while later as she made lunch.

Poland was supposed to be sweeping the kitchen, but had instead claimed a section of the kitchen counter as his new chair. "I guess. At least until you let your guard down."

"I thought so."

"Do you know when Germany and Prussia and Austria are supposed to get back?"

Hungary shrugged. "Austria's going to be home soon, and he's bringing Netherlands with him." Here, Poland cursed under his breath, and Hungary pretended she didn't notice. "I don't know when Germany and Prussia are supposed to get here."

"When Austria gets here, is he staying or..."

"Much as he may want to stay, Germany's not going to let him. It's pretty frustrating: Austria doesn't want to fight, but Germany's making him, whereas I actually want to get involved, but Germany won't let me."

"You're not a member of their alliance yet. He can't justify it."

"I _know_," Hungary said, in the tone of someone who's had their argument shot down in the exact same way fifty times already. "I know I can't fight until my boss signs on to their alliance. It's just driving me crazy that everyone else gets to beat up France and I don't get to help."

Poland shrugged. "That's kinda how being a Nation works. If you're not at war, you're, like, not supposed to beat people up."

"That doesn't make it any less frustrating," Hungary grumbled. "Not to mention, Prussia spent the entire week leading up to the invasion rubbing it in my face that he gets to go and I don't."

"So get revenge," Poland suggested. "Trash his office. Hide his _kriegsspiel_ stuff. Paint his room bright pink."

Hungary actually considered Poland's ideas for a minute there, but then she thought of something she could do to Prussia that would be much, much more devastating. "I've got a better idea," she said, grinning. "And I need your help."

"Ooh, what?" Poland asked eagerly, always ready to mess with Prussia.

"We're going to make sure that by the time he gets home, there's not a drop of beer left in the house."

"You want to drink all the beer in the house? Seriously?" Poland asked incredulously.

"Not all at once. Over the next few days. We'll make sure it's all gone by the time he gets home."

Poland thought about this for a second, then laughed. "He and Germany are going to be totally _miserable_! I love it! You get your revenge for Prussia's gloating, and I get…well, it's not even close to what I want to do to Germany and Prussia for, like, everything they've done to my people, but I'm totally not passing up a chance to make them miserable. I bet Prussia's going to _cry_ when he finds out there's no beer left!"

"Probably," Hungary agreed cheerfully.

-o-

_May 16, 1940  
The Maginot Line, France_

It was frustrating, really, how even after everything that had been accomplished, the People In Charge didn't seem to be sold on the idea that tanks could operate on their own, instead of just functioning as backup for the infantry. And not only that, but the People in Charge were starting to get worried because the operation was going too well, which pretty much made it a no-win situation: if the tanks had proved incapable of operating without the infantry, everyone would have (justifiably) gotten all twitchy about the current strategy, but they were also getting all twitchy because the tanks had proved _capable_ of operating without the infantry. Obviously the operation was going entirely too well, and someone needed to put a stop to all these astounding victories before the army ended up getting too far into enemy territory, because it's not like the army punching their way into enemy territory was the whole point of the operation, right?

Okay, fine, so it wasn't _quite_ that simple. It wasn't the astounding successes that had people worried, it was the fact that these astounding successes involved punching a hole in enemy lines and advancing into enemy territory with, as Prussia was getting thoroughly sick of hearing, the flanks and rear vulnerable to enemy attack. The People In Charge still didn't seem to grasp that _that wasn't a problem_, and still didn't seem to grasp that the tanks didn't need the infantry's help to be awesome, and still didn't seem to grasp just how thoroughly annoying they were becoming and how the only real obstacle in this situation was their stubborn inability to accept the victories that were being handed to them on a silver platter.

At least Rommel was every bit as awesome as Prussia had expected. Heck, maybe he was even _more_ awesome than Prussia had expected, because he'd actually managed to convince the higher-ups to give him permission to smash through the Maginot Line right here and now. At first, a swift move against the Maginot Line had been considered impractical and The Plan had, naturally, involved infantry divisions stealing all the glory and taking entirely too long. Prussia's attempts at getting the plan altered had failed spectacularly (probably due to Prussia's diplomatic skills being impaired by his increasing frustration), but Rommel had managed to get permission to punch through the Maginot Line and attack toward Avesnes.

Prussia was absolutely thrilled with this turn of events, and after the preliminary order was received via radio, Rommel, Prussia, and Prussia's beloved tanks moved out, fortunately before the written order could arrive, which probably would restrict the advance to _just_ the Maginot Line and Avesnes. Of course, there was always the possibility that this order would be conveyed through the radio after the written order failed to reach its intended recipients, but this wasn't a problem at the moment because the radio appeared to be conveniently malfunctioning.

Of course, Prussia naturally knew absolutely _nothing_ whatsoever about the cause of this very conveniently timed radio malfunction that just so happened to prevent them from receiving orders that Prussia didn't like, and he had no idea where Rommel could _possibly_ have gotten the idea that he did know something about it.

Nobody was complaining about this conveniently timed loss of radio contact, however, and Rommel didn't seem too upset by the malfunction when he questioned Prussia about it, because the lack of radio contact meant that nobody would be able to order him to stop winning the war until the higher-ups could get over their phobia of victories. (Nobody quite said this out loud, particularly with that phrasing, but Prussia just knew that everyone was thinking it.)

Now that the radio was conveniently not letting any inconvenient orders get in the way, it was time to punch through the Maginot Line.

When they reached the Maginot Line at dusk, it was clear that the best way forward was the road to Avesnes, but this road was unfortunately blocked by antitank steel hedgehogs, plus it was being bombarded by enemy artillery once the tanks got in range.

Prussia was inside one of the tanks, using Austria's pillow as a seat cushion (he'd insisted on dragging it with him, so he figured that he might as well put it to some kind of use). It was the job of the tanks and artillery to provide covering fire so that engineers could get the obstacles out of the road and let the tanks through. Honestly, the fight felt somewhat anticlimactic, however. Prussia had rather hoped for some kind of epic battle, but by nighttime, the road was cleared, no particularly spectacular fighting had broken out, and before long the way to the west was open.

Well, that was the big drawback to this strategy, Prussia supposed. The whole point here was to charge forward, guns blazing, and surprise the enemy so that they couldn't put up any proper resistance and just freaked out and surrendered. The goal here wasn't an epic fight to the death, it was to move quickly, pop up unexpectedly, and scare the other guy into doing his best impression of the Italy brothers.

It wasn't quite as fun, providing covering fire and not really seeing too much proper fighting, but it was a whole lot faster, a whole lot more effective, and, when Prussia thought about it, it was really the build-up to a whole lot of gloating after the war was over. Beating France in a fight was great, but managing to spectacularly defeat France in a matter of weeks without France even able to offer much resistance? Now _that_ was a victory. Sure, fighting France would be fun and beating France in a fight would be even more fun, but being able to say that he'd managed to make France either run away and/or surrender with pretty much no fighting whatsoever? France would be completely humiliated, and Prussia would _never_ let him forget it.

The road clear of obstacles, the tanks began to roll in a long column through the line of fortifications and past the nearby houses, some of which had caught on fire in the fighting.

Prussia began to laugh at how absolutely _awesome_ this war was.

-o-

_May 20, 1940  
__Berlin, Germany_

Austria opened the door to Germany's house and stepped a bit hesitantly inside. "Hello?" he called out, looking around for any signs of life. The scan came up in the negatory and Austria frowned. "Hello?" he tried again. There was no answer this time, either. _Strange_, Austria thought, advancing out of the foyer to find even more of the same: lights out, windows shut, no sound or movement anywhere. _Very strange_. Not to mention a little disconcerting.

He checked the kitchen next, finding no more there than he had anywhere else. A truly impressive stack of dirty dishes in the sink, yes, and no one around to do them. Austria sighed and shook his head; he should've known that Hungary would let Poland get away with skipping out on his chores. But on the subject of Austria's favorite neighbor….

"Hungary?" he inquired of the general area as he journeyed further into the seemingly deserted house. A thought occurred to him suddenly: she'd probably gone to the grocery store or to run some other errand and had taken Poland with her so that he didn't run wild and/or steal state secrets in her absence. Ah. That made sense, Austria decided contentedly. Well, then, that left him nothing to do but wait for her to get back.

Technically, it left him plenty to do, but Austria and housework were really like oil and water. As in, he had done the dishes once in his life, _maybe_ twice at the most, and he did not intend to change that number now.

Actually, Austria had done plenty of dishes in his lifetime, but he didn't like to think about that. Denial of the obvious seemed to come naturally to Nations, as evidenced by how Switzerland liked to pretend that he and Austria had never been friends and how England liked to pretend that all of that piracy had been so totally someone _else's_ doing. There were millions of examples if you really wanted to look for them. Austria just didn't want to wash the plates.

He climbed the stairs at a leisurely pace, planning to grab a book from his room to keep him busy while he waited for Hungary to return from the grocery run that he had deduced that she had gone on. He paused outside his door, fingers already curled around the knob and everything, and then, on a whim, took a few steps to the side and instead pushed open Hungary's door.

Lights off, blinds closed, but definitely sound this time. "Prussia?" Hungary groaned from her bed, lying on her stomach with her face buried in the pillow.

"What? No, it's me," Austria said in surprise, closing the door behind him and moving quickly towards the bed, wondering what on Earth was wrong.

"Good," he vaguely heard her mumble through a thick layer of cotton pillowcase. "I hate his voice."

"_Everyone_ hates his voice," Austria snorted. He hovered concernedly beside his only-technically-ex-wife. "What happened to you?"

"Oh," Hungary said faintly. "Just a hangover."

Austria stared at her. "Just a hangover," he repeated stupidly, not quite processing the information as fast as he would've liked.

"There's no alcohol in the house now," she added helpfully, following it up with another pained moan. "Because we drank it all."

"We?" Austria asked before a couple of the puzzle pieces snapped together in his mind. "You and Poland."

"Mm-hmm."

"You drank all the alcohol in the house." _Please tell me I've misunderstood somehow_, he added hopefully in his mind.

"Prussia was being an ass," she explained slowly, killer headache evident from her slow and apparently difficult pronunciation of the words. "So now he'll be miserable when he gets back."

Austria sighed and sat down on the side of the bed. "There was a _lot_ of alcohol in this house, Hungary," he said after a while, rubbing his forehead in the hopes that it would ease his stress. It didn't work. He took a deep breath, in and out, nice and slow. "All right. I'll get you some water and…I'm sure Germany has some Aspirin around here somewhere."

"Get me _all_ of it," Hungary told him, feeling around to try and find Austria's hand without actually taking her head out of its relatively comfortable place in the nice, soft pillow.

Austria gave her fingers a fond squeeze before remarking, "Hungary, immortal personifications of Nations or not, I'm fairly certain that we can still overdose on drugs."

He heard something that sounded faintly akin to, "Hate you so much," but he couldn't really tell. He strongly suspected the pillow could be blamed for the communication error and gave a small smile.

"All right. I'll be back in just a moment," Austria said, untwining his fingers from hers as he stood up.

"Get some for Poland, too?" Hungary added as Austria reached the door, propping herself slightly up so that she could be clearly understood. "He might still be asleep, though."

"Oh, I certainly hope so," Austria quipped with mock cheer. "The world would be a much more pleasant place for a few hours." He paused suddenly in the doorway and frowned. "I was under the impression that Poland didn't drink." Hungary made a muffled noise into her pillow. "What?"

"I _said_, 'shit, you're right.' I should've noticed…" Hungary took a deep breath and then winced, closing her eyes. "You've never seen him drunk, then?"

Austria blinked at her. "No, I don't believe I have," he said hesitantly, wondering as to the reason for the question. Hungary didn't respond immediately, instead looking down for a few moments to study her pillowcase and then making Austria wait just a bit longer when she reached up and rubbed her head, letting out a groan. She mumbled a curse word under her breath and then fell silent again. Austria began to doubt that she planned to elaborate at all. "Hungary?" he asked, figuring that however unlikely it was starting to seem, the question had sounded just a bit too loaded to be a casual one.

"I did once," Hungary eventually told him, speaking softly just in case Poland had woken up after all. She switched subjects. "He's really torn up about this loss, you know."

"That _is_ the usual reaction." Austria couldn't help but feel confused as to why she'd felt the need to point that out.

"No, I mean…" Hungary shook her head slightly, wincing as she did so. "He's _furious_, Austria. Honestly, I'd be careful if I were you. All of you."

"Did he say something?" Austria turned back into the bedroom, becoming concerned.

"Not exactly," Hungary's eyebrows flickered upwards. "He just…cried a lot. Cursed a lot."

"Is that really-?"

"And then he pitched a glass at me and punched a dent in the wall." Hungary turned towards the other Nation. "He scared the _hell_ out of me, Austria."

"He pitched a glass at you?" Austria repeated, hurrying back to the beside. "Did it hit you? Are you okay?" The dent in the wall didn't concern him. It wasn't _his_ house, after all.

Hungary smiled and shoved his hands away. "I'm _fine_. Don't worry about me; I can duck, you know. If I can beat up the Prussian army, I'm pretty sure I can handle a drunken Poland just fine."

Austria pouted at her, a little upset that his valiant efforts to both act as some sort of knight in shining armor and to insight a little bit of caution had been so easily shot down. "Still…"

"I've seen Poland drink…just this _one_ other time, Austria. Just once. Do you remember the…the Vilnius thing?"

"How could I forget?" Austria groaned, making a face. Whoo boy, that one had sure made a mess of the meeting room…

"Yeah, well, after that big argument he had with Lithuania, he went home and got drunk. I mean _sloshed_. I mean he drank enough alcohol to make _Russia_ violently ill."

"I don't think that amount actually exists…" Austria said absently, not really listening to himself speak, anyway.

"Every other day of every other year, it's, 'I don't drink,' but that night…" Pushing herself onto her side despite her _very_ visible discomfort with the position. She sighed. "Just be careful, all right? If the only other time we've seen him drink was when he was _that_ upset, then…I mean, if he feels that badly about this…"

_He's going to do something stupid, and someone's going to get hurt._

"I understand," Austria confirmed, taking her hand gently. "May I _please_ get you some water now?"

Hungary made a face, but shut her eyes and allowed herself to deflate back into the pillow, message delivered at least somewhat successfully. "I'm just going to die now, okay?"

Austria smiled, patted her hand, and headed for the door. "Okay," he told her, mildly amused. He headed out into the hall, throwing a contemplative glance at Poland's closed door as he descended the stairs. He would take Hungary's warning to heart, naturally, but at the moment, he was far more concerned with anticipating Prussia's anguished wail when he found out that, after that long time away from home, fighting in the war, he would have to—God forbid—actually go _get_ the alcohol if he wanted a drink.

The phone distracted him from those oh so pleasant thoughts, ringing furiously until he rolled his eyes and picked it delicately up. "_Hello_?" he said into the receiver, tone clearly indicating his disapproval with the actions of whoever was on the other end.

"Oh, hello, Austria," Germany said amiably back. "How are you? Did you get home all right?"

"Just what are you insinuating?" Austria demanded, because dang it, he sure as heck wasn't going to acknowledge his less than stellar sense of direction unless he absolutely had to.

"…that the war might've interfered with your travel?" Germany asked, sounding thoroughly baffled, and Austria frowned, slightly embarrassed.

"Yes…well. It didn't. Obviously," he coughed, looking conspicuously away from the receiver he could see Germany judging him through the phone. Austria cleared his throat properly, trying to maintain some dignity, and then tried, "What did you want?"

"Oh, I just thought that since you wrapped everything in the Netherlands up so nicely…" Austria's heart sank. "…That you could just head on over to Norway for a little while and see if you couldn't finish things up there as well."

"But I just got home," Austria complained loudly. An angry thump sounded above his head, he looked up at the ceiling and suspected that the noise had been Hungary's way of telling him to either hurry it up with that Aspirin, to shut his stupid mouth and stop making all that noise, or both at once. "Why don't you send Prussia? I'm sure he'd be delighted," he suggested more quietly.

"He's busy," Germany said with very badly feigned innocence. He then added helpfully, "In Belgium," as though that changed everything and made it all okay.

Austria heaved a massive sigh. "I suppose you planned this," he grumbled to the voice on the other end.

"I planned you finishing your invasion faster than Prussia. Really," Germany deadpanned back.

The nobleman scowled. "Fine," he yielded at last in a completely overdramatic manner, as though it were a concession of truly great worth and not him giving up a few weeks of comfort to help out his own country—more or less, anyway—in its war. "Fine. I'll _go_."

"Good." Germany was entirely too happy about it for Austria's liking, so the latter hung up after a brief and rather snappy goodbye. He frowned petulantly at the phone again as it sat on its little hook, looking sufficiently remorseful, or at least Austria liked to think so. He then stalked off in search of that Aspirin; perhaps he'd better grab some for himself as well. Being at war really did try one's patience so...

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Jargon (or, Why Warsaw Should Not Be in Charge of the Historical Notes):

-So the scene with the Netherlands was supposed to be in the last chapter, but neither of us could make the dumb thing work, so here it is now. Ugh. Yeah, so, like, the city of Rotterdam got killed and stuff with bombs. But, see, before that, Germany was all like, "Hey, we'll bomb your city if you don't surrender it. Yeah." And Netherlands was all like, "Wait, hang on, let's talk about this first..." So then the bombing that was supposed to happen got postponed...but it happened anyway, which was way not cool. And, um, so Netherlands surrendered and all that jazz, because Germany was all like, "Yeah, sorry about that...but I'll totally do it again if you don't surrender." And the Netherlands was all like, "Omigod, fine. Jerk," because he couldn't really stop the bombers but he totally didn't want to risk the destruction of another city. And that's the story of how the Battle of the Netherlands concluded, with Germany and the Netherlands channeling their inner teenage girls. I like to imagine them wearing miniskirts and Germany with bright blue nail polish on...

-Meanwhile, Poland and Hungary hang around Germany's house and don't do anything historical. Moving on...

-Now we cut to Prussia, who was not actually supposed to have stayed with Rommel for the entire invasion; he's _supposed_ to still be fighting Belgium. But apparently his grudge against France is too important than following orders. Anyway, Prussia and Rommel and company are smashing through the Maginot Line. It should also be noted that after getting permission to smash through the Maginot Line (why do I always word it like that?), there was a conveniently-timed communications breakdown that prevented anyone from being able to order Rommel to stop charging on ahead (a strategy that was clearly working, but which was making the People In Charge were more than a little nervous). Since Prussia doesn't seem to be in a following-orders mood at the moment, it seemed like something he would do, and Rommel didn't really mind all that much because, again, the strategy was _working_. (Yes, Vilnius wrote this one. You can tell because nobody's talking like Poland.)

-Hey, guys, Norway hasn't surrendered yet. Just thought you ought to know...

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius' Note: I spent two days obsessively reading and rereading sections of The Rommel Papers and Inside the Nazi War Machine before I even got close to thinking about writing that scene with Prussia. And yet I passionately hate that scene. Well, at least we finally got this chapter posted. I can't wait to get caught up because I'm stubbornly refusing to let myself read any of the new history books I got from the secondhand book store until we get back on schedule, so that I actually get my scenes written on time, but I'm not sure how long my willpower is going to last. The one about the Napoleonic Wars is calling my name...

Warsaw's Note: So I had this weird dream. And it was, like, the Opium Wars (from, you know, England and China's points of view) and it was fairly realistic for most of it. I mean, obviously none of it happened like it did in history, but it was still mostly reasonable. Except the part where England kind of rode a dinosaur. How he got it to China's place from his, I'll never know. But, anyway, the dream went more or less normally until the last ten minutes of dream-time, at which point England bursts out with "I've got a brilliant idea! China, how would you like to try being a pirate?" And then the rest of the dream was just...crack. I mean, pretty cool crack, but crack all the same. Pirate Iggy always gives me the best dreams, though...


	15. Evidence to the Contrary

_We're back! Again! We really need to stop dropping off the face of the planet like this, don't we?  
__Also, we still don't own Hetalia._

_Enjoy!_

**Chapter Fifteen: Evidence to the Contrary**

_May 19, 1940  
__Amiens, France_

England peeked out from behind the wall of a rather cute pastry shop with his gun at the ready. It didn't seem right to go waving your pistol around outside of a building that smelled of pastries and had a color scheme reminiscent of a little girl's bedroom, but desperate time called for desperate measures, so England was keeping his weapon close at hand, thank you very much. "France," he asked equally nervous ally, slipping back into relative safety and out of the view from the street. "We're not too far from the edge of the city, are we?"

"_Shh_!" France hissed furiously, pressing a finger to his lips.

"Oh for goodness sake, France, I _just_ looked-," England began, scowling. France clamped a hand over the other Nation's mouth before he could finish his sentence and repeated his shushing order. England raised an eyebrow disapprovingly and pried France's fingers off of his face. "_Really_, now, France," he sighed. "Germany's not-."

He was interrupted for the third time when his ally, having given up on keeping England quiet, shoved him out of the way to peek out into the open road for himself, not satisfied with England's assurance that it was still safe. Safe enough, anyway. "What, do you think he's just going to magically teleport himself here because I said his name?" England retorted, crossing his arms.

"_Quand on parle du loup_…," France murmured darkly, turning around long enough to give a deadly Look. It by no means had the intended effect.

"Oh, don't go spouting proverbs at me," England huffed. "All I want to know is…stop looking at me like that! Oh, _fine_." He dropped his voice to a whisper and shoved his free hand into his pocket so that he couldn't use it to punch the smug look off of France's face. "All I want to know is whether or not it will be long until we're out of the city."

"The _besieged_ city," France corrected him, equally quiet but by no means any less touchy than he had previously been.

"What _other_ city would I be talking about?" England snapped, quickly losing patience. In the pocket of his uniform, his fingers curled into a fist.

"I'm only reminding you."

England's eye twitched. His fist tightened. "Did you think I'd somehow _forgotten_? If you could stop acting like a prat for all of five seconds, France, we might be able to get out of this _besieged_ city, but since you can't…" He took a deep breath to calm himself down; there was no use in fighting with France now, after all. It wasn't very effective, so he shut his eyes, counted to ten, and then tried again. "I'm well aware that Amiens is a _besieged _city, you idiot! Why _else_ would we be trying so hard to get out of the bloody place before it falls?"

Whoops. That wasn't much better than his first attempt. Actually, it was even worse…

"Of course _you_ don't care," France pouted, throwing in a little sniffle and a wobbly lip for dramatic effect. "It's not _your_ country…"

"Spare me the puppy dog eyes, France," England said, making sure to sound just as unimpressed as he was feeling. "Come on, now. I don't know this city; you're the one who has to get us out of here."

France grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "It's not like you contribute anything else to this alliance," as he passed England by, at which point the other Nation began contemplating creative ways to commit murder. Oh, sure, England could get away with just shooting him—they _were_ in a besieged city, after all—but that wouldn't be any _fun_, now would it? "Hurry up," the older Nation ordered, cutting rudely into England's homicidal thoughts. "If we want to avoid getting captured, this way is our best bet." England scowled at France when he glanced over his shoulder to check that his ally had heard. "Although, England, why you _don't_ want to get captured is beyond me."

"What on Earth would make you say that?" England demanded in utter confusion as he waited for the other man to confirm that their selected path was reasonably safe.

"I just thought you'd want to get it out of the way early this time, since you seem to have made it a tradition of yours." France beamed over his shoulder before motioning with his gun-free hand for the two of them to move forward.

"Why, you…!" England spluttered, deeply and horribly offended. "I have done nothing of the kind."

"Is that so?" France asked with feigned innocence. England's trigger finger trembled eagerly.

"Nations get captured all the time, France," he said, trying to keep himself from shooting by switching to a scholarly sort of attitude. "It's a natural consequence of keeping to the front lines. Of course I've been captured more frequently than regular soldiers; my enemies are _looking_ for me. You've been captured a fair number of times, as well, you know." There. That would show him.

"Yes, but I don't make a hobby of it," France countered cheerfully, still keeping his voice quiet as he and his ally tiptoed through the streets, keeping a wary eye out for Germany or his soldiers as they went. It was dangerous business, this "sneaking out of besieged cities" thing that Nations were forced to do.

"I thought it was a _tradition_," England grumbled under his breath, even more displeased with the new wording than the old. "Fine," he said in a voice that the other personification could hear. "Name…five wars."

"Off the top of my head?" France asked. Before England could fire back some witty quip about how easy a task it should be if it happened as often as had been claimed, France shrugged and gave his answer. "Fine. The Great War-."

"Please, that's a terrible example. _Everyone_ got captured in that one."

"Point," France admitted, but the fact that he sounded no less amused as he did so did not bode very well for England. "The Hundred Years' War—I can't count things more than once, can I?"

"_No_."

"Fair enough," France tried and failed to mask his chuckle as a cough. It didn't help matters. England fumed silently and searched the surrounding area for their enemy, hoping to find someone he _could_ shoot. "Our petit _Am__é__rique's_ revolution-."

"Remind me which one of us ended up getting strangled?" England asked warningly, the implication being that a repeat performance was becoming increasingly probable.

"You were just jealous-," France gave his hair a theatrical flip for effect.

"_Disgusted_ is more like it."

France snickered and simply finished his sentence as though he had never been interrupted. "…because I gave your precious colony a little kiss."

Twitch, twitch. "It _wasn't_ little."

France clucked his tongue and offered up a sympathetic, "Then you have obviously been starved of _l'amour_, _mon cher_. Perhaps if I could just-."

"You may_ not_," England cut in firmly. "And would you keep your voice down? Even if we are keeping to the backstreets, there's still a fairly high chance that Germany will find us. He's somewhere in the city, that much we know."

France pursed his lips unhappily. "Oh, you're no fun at all," he pouted, clearly wishing England hadn't made such a good point. "How about the First War ofScottishIndependence, then?" France said nastily, albeit with a suitably lowered voice. A small victory for England, then. Your big brother certainly did a number on _you_."

England rubbed at the scar across the bridge of his nose. It had mostly faded by this point—it was from a rather long time ago, after all—but it had at one point been very noticeable. Nations only scarred when an injury etched itself into their brain as a part of them before it could heal. "_Well_," he growled, "you've only named four, so-."

"War of the First Coalition."

"…Fine. But don't think I didn't notice how spread out those wars were." England began, all ready to make a counterargument.

"I picked the most significant," France explained sweetly. "I was even nice enough to avoid bringing up the Norman Conquest so that I wouldn't set off that nasty temper of yours—_oops_." He cut off England's furious response by throwing out an arm in front of him and pressing a finger to his lips as they reached the end of the street.

"I'll have you know that-!"

"Be a dear and keep quiet for a minute, would you?" France purred, slipping a hand over England's mouth. The shorter Nation contemplated biting him, but was distracted before he had the chance.

He shoved France forward into the alleyway with his free hand, raising the arm holding the pistol. "We've got company!"

"I told you not to be so loud," France hissed. Hypocrisy at its finest. "What's the plan?"

"Get out of here," England ordered, cocking his pistol. "First of all, I'm positive that Germany can beat you up, so you'd be next to useless, and second of all, if he does manage to defeat me-."

"You mean like he's been doing?" France snorted, hands on his hips.

"There's no point in both of us being captured," England continued hastily, ignoring the comment. He peeked back out into the street. "From what I can see, he's alone, so you should be able to get away without any trouble."

"Don't die," France told him perkily as some sort of a twisted good luck token, turning to head in the other direction.

"You too, frog," England shot back, darting into the street.

"It's no wonder you always get yourself captured. Once a pirate, always a flashy, audacious little imp, I suppose," France sighed. England pretended that he hadn't heard.

England didn't hesitate to start shooting as he approached the enemy Nation, firing his first bullet only a split second after he turned the corner, making use of the element of surprise in its fleeting last moments. He missed, but he hadn't expected anything else.

"Oh, it's you," Germany said disinterestedly as he moved to repay England's attack with one of his own. "What happened to France?"

The bullet that Germany fired whizzed narrowly past England's cheek, and the Allied country sucked in a breath and counted his blessings. "He'd only be in the way," he answered lazily, taking more careful aim this time as he shot for a second time. Germany ducked it without too much trouble. England swore under his breath; it seemed that his good luck had begun to fizzle out already. As he closed the gap between Germany and himself, he found himself wishing, just a little bit, that wars still relied on swords. Had this been a battle of blades, he had no doubt as to which of the two combatants would be victorious. Shame, really…

Dipping beneath the butt of Germany's pistol as the younger man swung it towards him, expecting to catch him off guard, England steadied his own gun and fired again. It seemed that Lady Luck had not deserted him after all; the bullet tore into Germany's shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain and drop his gun. England clucked his tongue—he'd been aiming for the heart, only a few inches away—and followed up by punching with his free hand, hoping for a knockout blow. Unfortunately, Germany caught the punch with his uninjured arm, having recovered by that point from the shock of being shot, and hauled England into the nearest wall.

England dizzily spat out a tooth and hoped that the ringing in his ears wouldn't last very long. "Ow." Damn it, he'd hit his head, that wasn't—wait, move, _move_. He rolled blindly to the right, not caring what direction he went in just so long as he wasn't in the same place. He was just a little slow; Germany's first bullet grazed his neck and the second caught him in the arm. The third and fourth hit the wall, though, so thank goodness for small favors.

Yeah, all right, that settled it. Lady Lack was just a huge tease and England was obviously not her type.

England pushed himself into his back and tried to glare at Blurry Germany. "You…" he began, mounting a valiant effort to get his gun into a position from which he could defend himself.

That effort turned out to be as unnecessary as it was hopeless, which was saying quite a lot. Before England could get out another word, a bullet exploded into Germany's skull from behind, sending cranial nastiness in various directions as the Nation crumpled to the ground. England blinked in confusion, gagged, and then rubbed at the brain fluid on his jacket. "Ew."

"Are you all right?" someone called. England glanced up, looked around a bit too quickly, and then opted to lean back against the wall and wait for the mysterious speaker to come to him. His plan worked; less than a minute later, France hurried out the back door of some unnamed little shop, rifle in hand. "Sorry it took so long," he said as he jogged up to his injured ally. "That window was at a terrible angle and I couldn't line up a shot..."

England ran his tongue through the new gap inside his mouth, tried to think of something witty to say, failed epically, and then eventually settled on slurring out, "You suck, Franceypants."

His ally's lips quirked into a wry smile. "A little bit concussed, I think," he noted, entirely too amused for England's liking.

"Hey…it's not funny," England argued half-heartedly. "And I got shot. Twice"

"Then aren't you lucky I was here to help you out?" France gave him a little pat on the head. England groaned at him. "Ah, yes. Sorry." England doubted it, but nevertheless he accepted the other country's offer to bandage his shoulder and arm.

"He'll be up soon," he said unhappily as France worked, not bothering to indicate to the Nation beside them. Who else would he be talking about, after all? "Battlefield stuff heals fast."

"Don't say that like it's a bad thing," France scolded, not looking up. "You're useless in this state; we're _lucky_ that Nations heal quickly." He finished tying up the bandage on England's arm and added, "This should be healed up in a day or two." He tipped his head towards Germany's body and darkly added, "But then again, so should he. Given how strong his country is right now, we're also lucky that we pulled that off. Come on, we've got to get out of here. Are you all right to walk?"

"Yes," England said, despite all evidence to the contrary. He grudgingly accepted France's help wobbling to his feet, and he continued to wobble just as much once he was properly standing. "Er…"

"Here," France sighed, slipping beneath his ally's uninjured arm to help him walk. "Heal quickly," he ordered, "because I am _not_ going to carry you."

"Shut it, frog," England snapped back, squinting against the bright lights. "If it was you that'd been shot, you'd be whining until our ears bled, so don't pretend to be so strong and mighty just because I'm injured." France chuckled quietly and patted England on the head again, a little bit harder this time. "_Concussion_."

"Oops."

"Wanker."

It was going to be a long war.

-o-

_May 23, 1940  
__Lille, France_

By this point, it was beginning to become clear that France and England were unprepared for this war to a hilarious degree. Prussia had been sending semi-regular messages about his progress via Gilbird, and had other sources not confirmed Prussia's claims, Germany probably would have dismissed the messages as exaggerated attempts at bragging.

More official sources were less prone to bragging, however, and they were telling the same story that Prussia was, so Germany was more inclined to believe that yes, this strategy _was_ yielding results beyond his wildest dreams. And while normally, this would be a clue that he was walking straight into a trap, Germany wasn't as worried as he normally would have been because he'd run into France and England a time or two, and the pair of them were just as thoroughly unprepared, not to mention as thoroughly freaked out, as Prussia had claimed their forces were.

At first, Germany had been a bit worried about going to war with France and England again, particularly with this completely new strategy. His worries, however, turned out to be so completely unfounded that he was starting to find it funny that he'd worried in the first place. France and England's strategies were completely breaking down and the two of them were starting to realize just how outmatched they were. And they were starting to get _scared_, which, in Germany's mind, served the two of them right.

Germany's forces were approaching another town, and Germany's Nation sense was telling him that France and England were somewhere nearby. Of course, if they were paying attention, they could sense his presence as well, but this knowledge didn't worry Germany. It was pretty much a toss-up as to whether they'd try to attack (and inevitably fail), or if they'd freak out and run.

Germany followed his Nation senses to their location in order to find out.

When he found England and France, they were doing what they did best: arguing. They were probably supposed to be having an emergency strategy meeting, but they didn't seem to be accomplishing very much. Admittedly, _not accomplishing much_ was pretty much par for the course where the two of them were concerned, but still, Germany had expected that they'd have at least made an effort to get along at least a little bit. They _were_ supposed to be fighting a war together, after all. You'd think they'd have at least tried to stop arguing for that (not that Germany and his allies could really talk about not arguing while there was a war on), but nope, the brave defenders of justice and neutral countries and puppies and Christmas were sitting on a bench, bickering away and not even noticing Germany's presence behind them. At least they'd managed to stay mostly on the topic of the war, rather than devolving into arguing about England's cooking abilities (or lack thereof) or France's perverted tendencies like they usually did.

Germany signaled to his forces to stop for a minute because this was just _too _priceless.

"My military is in no way inefficient," France snapped at England. "There is nothing wrong with my military! If anything—" There was more, but England cut him off before he could get it out. Germany, meanwhile, found himself fighting to keep from laughing at France's claim about the efficiency of his military, because in Germany's experience throughout this war, France's military was so inefficient that it bordered on comical at times.

"If there's nothing wrong with your military, then how has Germany managed to consistently defeat or chase off any of your forces he comes into contact with?" England demanded, having unknowingly come to the same conclusion as Germany. "Evidently _something_ is wrong!"

"He's defeated your forces too, you know," France said defensively. "If I'm doing something wrong, I'm not the only one. Neither of us was prepared for this; we were expecting this attack to be like the last time we fought Germany."

"Well...at least we're not stuck fighting in trenches this time around," England said in a pathetic attempt at optimism.

"I'd rather be stuck in the trenches than be defeated again and again by a strategy that we don't know how to counter."

"We'll just have to figure out a way to counter it, then," England said, then, unable to resist the chance to insult France, added "Which would be a lot _easier _if your military wasn't so ridiculously inefficient."

"It would also be easier if you would stop using the same argument over and over and help me come up with a plan. If we could stop fighting for—"

He was cut off by a high-pitched squeaking sound and an attempt at strangulation, both courtesy of a now-furious England. "I'll stop fighting with you when you learn to keep your hands to yourself, pervert!"

Germany found himself wondering how exactly these two had ever managed to form an alliance in the first place if they couldn't get through a simple strategy meeting without attempting to kill each other. (Again, he thought this despite the fact that his own allies didn't get along much better.) But he'd spent enough time watching France and England argue; it was time to move along. He signaled for his forces to get moving once again and, unable to resist, walked up just behind France and England and cleared his throat loudly.

The two Nations on the bench turned to see who was interrupting them and, as expected, had a truly epic moment of panic at the sight of Germany standing right behind them. Germany rather wished he'd brought a camera.

England loudly blurted out a few choice words that rather clashed with the gentlemanly image he liked to project. France stumbled back, looking as if all his worst nightmares had just come true. All previous arguments were immediately forgotten as France and England, completely caught off guard, completely unprepared for battle, and completely outnumbered by Germany's forces, _ran like heck_.

Germany promptly decided that this was, if not the best moment of his life, then definitely in the top ten.

-o-

_May 23, 1940  
Just outside of Lille, France_

England leaned up against the nearest wall and reveled in the touch of its wonderfully, _wonderfully_ cool surface. All right, lesson learned. The next time he and France felt the need to argue out in the open like that, they could do it while they were walking. He gasped in a breath of air and wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead. "_Well_," he breathed, breaking the silence at last.

France glanced over at him from similar position a few feet away. "Yeah," he said back as though it was a valid response of something. It very much _wasn't_, but it seemed to satisfy both of the tired Allies for a few more minutes. France cleared his throat, and then realized that exhaling was perhaps not the best course of action for someone who'd just run several miles in less than obliging temperatures. And when I say "run", I really mean "bolted at top speed from an enemy and his backup who were very much in a position to thrash and/or take them prisoner with very little effort required." He took a deep breath to satisfy his parched throat and said, "That was…"

_Humiliating_ being the unspoken complement, of course. England slid down against the wall of the abandoned house they'd chosen as a hideout. _Oh, how the mighty have fallen_. "France?" he asked, eyeing the floor tone somewhere between irritated and humbled. "Have we done…anything right since this war started?"

"Well, of course we…" France trailed off, lowering the finger he'd raised to wag disapprovingly at the other Nation as punishment for doubting their efforts. But, the thing was… "I'm sure there's something," he offered finally, shaking his head. England's answer was a disbelieving snort. Unable to think of an adequate comeback to _that_, France sat down beside his ally on the floor.

"The last few years," England declared, pulling his legs against his chest and staring at the far wall unhappily, "have been a series of spectacular failures on our part. Appeasement…"

"Fail!" France announced with mock cheer, giving his finger a celebratory swirl in the physical equivalent of a deadpanned, "Whoo-_frickin'_-hoo."

"Poland…"

"Fail!" Another swirl.

"Belgium and the Low Countries…"

France lowered his hand. "Take a guess," he sighed, having run all out of cheer, fake or otherwise.

"And…well, now _you_." England tapped his head against the wall. It didn't do any good; actually, it gave him a bit of a headache, but at least it broke up the awkward silence that ensued and took his mind away from the situation a little bit.

"Yeah," France said softly, obviously unhappy with how things had played out. And, really now, could you blame him?

England glanced over at his dejected ally, made a face, and then pushed away from the wall. "Well, there's no need to look quite so gloomy, France. The war's not over yet, is it?"

"_Eh_…"

England blinked at his ally. "…You were supposed to say 'no,' France," he chastised softly. "Agree with me for once."

"_Well_…"

England scrambled to his feet. "Don't give me _that_," he ordered, hands on his hips. "We've still got a chance, do you hear me? France, I said, we've _still got a chance_." He was trying to channel his frustration with the other Nation into some sort of positive energy. It really didn't work, and what he ended up with came off as something from the more psychotic end of the spectrum. Honestly, if you gave him a cleaver and stalked him with a video camera, you could have the next slasher film in a matter of minutes. France leaned away, suitably unnerved.

"Sit back down, _Angleterre_. Cheery doesn't suit you," the older country informed England.

England huffed at him. "I'm not being cheery; I'm being _confident_." He glared down at his ally. "And cheery suits me just fine, thank you _very much_."

"No," France said, shaking his head. "It really doesn't. Especially not right now." He slid further down against the wall until only his head was still touching its surface. "And I think we're all out of optimism for now."

"We _weren't_," England countered, pouting a little bit but retaking his seat anyway. At least no one could say that he hadn't tried. "But that was the last of it, what you just killed there, France. _Congratulations_." France reached out to listlessly swat at him. "All right," England moved on, dodging France's apathetic attacks without much difficulty. "We're going to die, France. Does it make you feel better to hear that again?"

"The familiarity is comforting," France's eyebrows flickered upwards.

"Ah! There's a little bit of humor left. We really aren't done yet," England's attempt to sound mildly triumphant was more successful than his last try at conveying an emotion he wasn't feeling, but only just. "Not very funny, though…"

"England?"

"Hmm?" The shorter man tipped his head towards his companion tiredly. "What, France?"

France stared up at the ceiling, looking as though he couldn't decide whether he wanted to be confused, angry, or sad at the moment and was trying to pull off all three at once and failing miserably. His mouth twitched. "My boss says…" He fell silent for a minute or two. England suspected that he was debating whether or not he even wanted to finish the sentence.

"Your boss says _that…_?" he prompted impatiently, tapping his fingers on one knee. "Come on, out with it, France."

"He says we're pretty much done," turned out to be the end of the sentence.

England took that it. "We," he repeated softly, feeling the word on his tongue. "We, as in you and I, France? Or 'we' as in…"

"Me and my troops?" France asked, still studying the ceiling. "That one, yes."

England took a deep breath in and held it for a little while. He tried watching the ceiling, too, but found it to be an unsatisfactory pastime. He let the air out. "_Bullshit_."

"I wish it was, England," France shook his head tiredly. "You know I do, but-."

"Bull_shit_," The Brit repeated stubbornly, getting hastily back onto his feet. "Don't be pathetic, France."

"I'm not being pathetic."

"You _are_," England snapped, cutting fiercely in. France didn't seem to notice, and that only infuriated his ally even more. "And do you know what? I don't care. I don't _care_ what you do when it's just your life at stake but it's _not_, damn it. France, don't you _dare_ do this to me now."

"Do what?" France asked sulkily. England kicked him. Hard, in the shins.

"Shut down. You have a country full of people who are counting on you to protect them, all right? They may not _know_ they're counting on you or anything, but…but they _are_!"

"_Angleterre_, would you like a few minutes to think this argument out before you make it any worse?" France offered helpfully from his position on the ground. England kicked him again. France made a little grunt of pain, but he really should've seen that coming.

"Be quiet! It's not just your country counting on you, either, France. There's mine as well. So don't…" England switched tactics, seeing that he was getting nowhere. He got down on his knees, bringing himself to eye level with the other Nation. "France, listen. I know this war hasn't exactly gone the way we wanted it to…" He paused, anticipating France's loud laugh of sarcastic assent. "Yes, but even though…" _Even though we're getting trounced at every turn. Even though we can't keep up. Even though we're outmatched and outmaneuvered and outclassed. _"Despite all that," he corrected, changing his mind again about what he wanted to say. "No matter how bad this war is going, you still have to see it through to the end, all right?"

France sighed. "England, we've been fighting for less than a month, and already I've had my boss take me aside and tell me to start packing my things. How the hell am I _supposed_ to take that?"

"I don't care _how_ you take it," England scoffed, unimpressed. "All I care about is whether or not you're going to fight with me."

France sort of shrugged at him. "It's not that easy, England."

His ally stared at him, shuddering through a couple of emotions in rapid succession before settling on _anger_ and grabbing France by the arm. "Fine," he snapped. "That's bloody _fine_." He dragged the man through the house, eyes flickering across the walls, stopping frequently to yank open any doors they passed, peek inside, and then slam it shut and continue to march onwards, still talking very loudly. "But if you can't stop whining and moping around long enough to help _me_ protect _your_ people…" he paused in his quest, having at last opened, it seemed, the right door. "France?" he asked, suddenly casual again. "Does that look like the basement to you?"

"Yes?" It did, too, but France clearly had no idea what its relevance to the current situation was.

"Fantastic!" England shoved France inside, slamming the door behind him, using his foot to push back against France's initial weak, confused efforts while he reached for a piece of furniture with which to trap the doorknob. "Where was I?" he wondered aloud, succeeding in his efforts and situating the chair under the knob to keep the door closed. France, having by now realized exactly what England was doing, intensified his pounding to no avail. "Oh, yes," England said, dropping smugly into the seat despite its odd angle and crossing his legs, managing somehow to keep both himself and the chair from toppling to the floor in a heap. "If you're not going to stop whining and moping around long enough to help me protect your people," he repeated, giving a little smirk. "Then you can just stay out of _my_ way."

"_Angleterre_, what is wrong with you?" France snapped from beyond the other side of the basement door, giving it an extra-hard thumping for good measure. England didn't seem to notice, resting his chin lazily on his palm as he propped his elbow up on the chair's carved wooden arm.

"What's wrong with _me_?" He barked out a laugh, genuinely amused. "I'm not the one crying over a defeat that hasn't happened yet, _my dear_."

France quieted down on his side of the wall. "What am I supposed to do, then, England?" he asked softly.

"You're a Nation, France," England told him without a moment's hesitation. "What do you _think_ you're supposed to do? Fight battles, defend your homeland, et cetera, et cetera…" He waved his free hand nonchalantly about in time with his speech.

"That's not what I meant. You know it isn't," France responded softly. England had to strain a little bit to hear him. "What am I supposed to do about _losing_ those battles, about _losing _that homeland, about losing _faith_ and losing _hope_?"

England rapped his knuckles against the door. "That's an easy one, France," he shrugged. "You don't rattle." He fell silent for a little while, as did the man he was keeping trapped in the basement. "We don't rattle," he said again after a minute or so, quieter this time but with no less conviction.

"_Angleterre_?" France said after another pause.

"Hmm?"

"You're a little bit crazy, you know that?"

England grinned wickedly. "Come now," he chuckled. "It wouldn't be any _fun _if I wasn't."

"…You're not going to let me out yet, are you?"

"Neither would that."

-o-

_May 24, 1940  
_Bodø, Norway

"I haven't seen you in a while," Norway called. His tone strongly implied that he wasn't particularly upset by this, and that he wouldn't have minded too terribly if Austria had stayed away a bit longer. The bullet he shot at Austria's head did an excellent job of reinforcing this implication, even if it did miss its mark, mostly because its mark moved out of its path at the last moment.

Norway wasn't the only one who rather wished that Austria had stayed away a bit longer. Austria had spent the entire trip wondering if maybe he could have gotten away with staying at Germany's house a _little_ while longer. Germany probably would have never found out if Austria had waited an extra couple days to leave. Of course, Austria hadn't headed off _immediately_ after Germany's phone call anyway. He'd stayed behind for a day or so—someone had to run things at home, after all, and Hungary certainly wasn't in any condition to do so while in bed with a hangover. He'd have liked to stay home longer, but he couldn't really justify it once Hungary recovered. (Not to mention the fact that hung-over Poland was at least twice as annoying as regular Poland, and Austria strongly suspected that if he'd had to deal with Poland's nonsense for a moment longer, it was entirely likely that Poland would have spent the next few days scrubbing his own blood off the floor, walls, and any furniture in the area.) The instant Austria had headed off back to the war, however, he'd immediately begun wishing that he'd procrastinated a bit more. Surely Hungary could have used his help for a _little_ longer, and surely Poland hadn't really been _that_ intolerable, and surely Germany hadn't meant for him to leave _quite_ so soon. Unfortunately, he knew that he was deluding himself, or at least trying to delude himself, and thus he forced himself to go get the fighting over with.

"I haven't seen you in a while either," Austria called back to Norway, answering his unspoken question about where the heck Team Germany had been. "Ever since Germany decided that his grudge match with France was more important than finishing the invasion he'd already started."

Norway, as expected, looked more than a little irritated by the implication that Germany didn't take him seriously enough to fight in person, almost as irritated as he'd looked a little while earlier, when Austria had announced his presence on the battlefield by putting a bullet in Norway's left arm. He would have put it in Norway's chest, ending the battle right then and there, but unfortunately, the other Nation's instincts had warned him to at least manage to avoid getting killed right off the bat.

Norway shot at Austria again, his war effort now fueled by righteous anger, now that Austria had confirmed for him that Germany didn't take him as seriously as he should have. "So not only do you invade my country, you also don't respect me enough to actually fight me in person? You just leave that up to your army while you go off and fight someone else?" Norway demanded. He had a point, Austria had to admit. When two Nations were at war, they fought each other; that was just how it worked. Not bothering to actually _fight_ the Nation you were at war with wasn't just tacky, it was an insult.

"It wasn't my idea," Austria protested, barely managing to dodge fast enough to avoid injury. "And it isn't my fault that Prussia can yell louder than the voice of reason."

Norway didn't appear particularly impressed with Austria's excuses, but then again, he and Austria were in the middle of a battle, so it didn't really matter since they'd end up shooting at each other regardless of whether Norway was personally offended by Team Germany's recent absence from the battlefield. Norway shot at Austria, the way people who are at war with each other generally do, and this time managed to hit him in the arm, although fortunately it wasn't the arm he was using to hold his pistol. Austria very nearly swore, caught himself in time, and settled for glaring at Norway in the most imperious, indignant, _you need to learn your place you insolent little worm_ way possible. It was quite an impressive look, particularly given that by this point, after so many years of arguing with Prussia, Austria had a _lot_ of practice with this expression.

Austria, his _insolent little worm_ expression still in place, shot back at Norway. His first shot missed, but he corrected his aim and managed to put a bullet in Norway's stomach with the second shot. Norway stumbled back, barely managing to keep his balance. He glanced down at the wound, cursed under his breath, and apparently decided to take it as an indication that it was time for him to get away from the battlefield before he either died of blood loss or the wound in his stomach slowed him down enough to get him killed some other way. Healing from wounds happens a lot faster when one doesn't have to heal from being dead first, after all.

Austria, meanwhile, didn't exactly intend to let Norway get away. This war would be a lot quicker and simpler if he managed to kill or capture Norway here. All would not be lost if he did let him slip away, but taking Norway out of the fight would save time, which was the important thing here (at least in Austria's mind). Unfortunately, Norway had other ideas and he hadn't exactly forgotten about Team Germany's insult to his fighting ability. So as Austria went to shoot at Norway again, hoping to actually kill him this time, Norway carefully took aim and fired.

As a bullet tore its way into his chest, Austria fired back at Norway, but missed wildly, due to the aforementioned chest wound throwing off his aim. Norway took advantage of Austria's newfound distraction in order to get off the battlefield before he could end up getting killed and being forced to stay out of the war any longer than he was already going to. Austria, now lacking an opponent and hampered by his latest injury, took advantage of the chance to do the same.

-o-

_May 25, 1940  
__On the road to Dunkirk, France_

After much hinting and even more complaining, France had eventually defaulted to walking backwards.

It wasn't as though he was actually _trying_ to be obnoxious, although his traveling companion would likely have begged to differ. It was just that England had been moving slower and slower as time had passed, and by the this point, they weren't so much retreating as they were taking a leisurely stroll through north-eastern France in bold defiance of the surrounding chaos. Leisurely strolls, however, were not exactly very conducive to escape, and France was already trying so terribly hard not to panic as it was. England's pace was doing nothing for his ally's frantic state of mind.

France clasped his hands behind his back and studied the frowning country who was supposed to be keeping up with him. "I could always carry you, you know," he offered sweetly. England glared dangerously back at him. "I'm only saying, _Angleterre_," he purred, pretending that he wasn't having a mental breakdown as he spoke. "They call it '_running_ away' for a reason."

"Be quiet," England growled, arms curled protectively around his stomach. France waited for him to say something else. England seemed to be doing the same, but after several full minutes of uncomfortable silence, it became pretty clear to both parties that nothing was going to come of it.

"You know what?" France said after a fashion. "I'm pretty sure that if we just sat down right here and waited for Germany to catch us, we would be accomplishing just as much as we are now."

"I said be quiet!" England snapped. France's witty retort died in his throat as his ally's face contorted suddenly in pain.

France blinked confusedly at him. "England?" he asked, just a little bit worried. Well, a little bit _more_ worried; they _were_ supposed to be in retreat, after all. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," the shorter Nation insisted. France didn't believe him for a second.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, catching England by the shoulders when he stumbled just in time to preemptively refute any further claims of normalcy. "You aren't being attacked, are you?" Because they really couldn't handle it right now if he were…

"Bombed, I think," England admitted shoving France's hands away before they could make the transition from 'helping' to 'wandering.' After a moment, he added, "It's not all that bad from a distance." The implication being that he'd be curled up on the floor if they were closer…

France swore under his breath, glancing around to make sure that Germany hadn't made his little joke significantly less funny and actually caught up to them. Just in case. Improbable as it might have been, he didn't want to risk them both getting captured if he could avoid it. "What can I do?" he sighed, eyes still flickering nervously around beyond England's shoulders.

"To help?" England snorted. "Unless you can shoot down his planes from here, France, I don't think there's much that you _can_ do." He shut his eyes all of a sudden and let out a particularly ungentlemanly string of curses. France ignored all twenty-six of them, a truly impressive feat.

"Do you remember when I offered to carry you earlier?"

England's eyes opened immediately. "Absolutely not," he told his ally sternly.

France rolled his eyes. "Do you want to get us captured?" His hands found their way to his hips independent of his thoughts.

"Don't ask stupid questions," England grumbled, clearly unhappy with all of the fuss over his own problem.

"Oh, you're right," France smirked. "But do you want to get _yourself_ captured? Because I'll just ditch you and run."

"If you abandon me, so help me, I will dump out all of your wine and replace it with water. _Water_, France."

"What, from your prison cell in Berlin?" the older Nation snorted, unimpressed. "Do you have a better idea, England?"

"We don't need an idea," the island country snapped, "because, as I've _been_ saying to you, I'm _fine_."

"You're not fine; you're being bombed," France said in his Scolding Mother Voice. "There's a pretty big difference, _mon cher_."

"I am still perfectly capable of walking," England argued back. His ally was having none of it.

"_Very_ slowly, which does us absolutely no good-," France began, but England cut him off, shoving roughly past him and sort of shuffling off down the road. France doubted the pace would last, but he figured that obliging his ally, at least for a little while, would make things easier later.

England's increased speed lasted all of ten minutes, which were filled with a horrible, hostile silence, the kind that usually accompanied the two long-time rivals when one of them was trying to prove something and the other had decided to let them try on the grounds that they were bound to fail. After stumbling along despite his obvious pain for entirely too long, England glanced over at France, most likely to say something prideful about his own success, despite the fact that he was bordering on collapse. "What are you staring at?" he asked instead, surprise evident, squinting at the spot on the ground his ally was watching so intently.

"Do you see that snail there?" France responded casually, pointing. England blinked at the earth.

"_What_?" It was a good question.

"It's gaining on us." As England made an irritated "humph" sound, France turned to him and added pointedly, "And so is Germany."

"I thought you said that the French war was practically over, anyway," England groused. France made a face; he was getting awfully tired of having that comment thrown back in his face.

"I was just telling you what my boss told me," he sulked, shoving his hands in his pockets. "You don't think I _liked_ having to say that, do you?

"Oh, I don't see why it should bother you," England said with a nasty grin. "Lasting a whole month without surrendering…you must be so proud-."

"On the subject of pride," France cut in loudly, suddenly looping a hand around his ally's waist and pulling him up off his feet, allowing himself a satisfied grin at England's squawk of astonishment. He hefted the shorter Nation over his shoulder and pretended that he didn't notice the failing that ensued immediately after, as well as the protests and the cursing.

"France, for the love. Of. _Scones_, are you out of your mind? You put me down right this bloody instant! Are you listening? France? _France_! I will not stand for this one moment longer, do you hear me?"

"You're not standing at all," France quipped cheerfully, although his smile faded when England nearly kicked him in the face. "Watch where you're swinging those short little legs of yours, _mon ami_."

"Oh, I'm _terribly sorry_," England scoffed, and then kicked him in the stomach.

It was a pyrrhic victory, to say the least. Sure, France wasn't carrying him anymore, but then again, perhaps that had been better than landing hard in a heap on the ground when he was unintentionally released.

"Ow!" France whined, doubling over in sudden pain.

"_Ow_," England echoed even more vociferously, noting that at least now he could curl himself into a ball. It seemed to help, however slightly.

"I was only trying to help," France complained unhappily, sitting upright again and shoving his ally away from him with his foot. England made a rude noise of complaint and France stuck out his tongue. "We should stick to being enemies," he noted grumpily.

"We are much better at it, aren't we?" England agreed with a sigh, still lying on his side. They sat like that for a while longer.

"All right," France declared eventually after clearing his throat to make sure that the other Nation was listening. "I'm going to go now." He poked at his rival's back with a stick. "Hey, are you coming?"

"Yes," England huffed, and then made no move to do so.

France frowned at him. "So you won't let me carry you but you'll lie in the dirt?" He shifted up onto his knees and stared disapprovingly down at the back of the other Allied Nation's head, still poking. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Shut up," England mumbled, pretending that the other personification hadn't just offered up a piece of sound logic. "I'm not a child, France," he added, feeling the need for a little justification on his end of the dispute.

"I never said you were." France crossed his arms impatiently.

"And you're a pervert," England reminded him. There was no way that _that_ accusation could be refuted, and they both knew it.

"…Am not," France muttered anyway. A pitiful defense, yes, but one that he thought he ought to at least try to mount. England snorted in response. France tried again. "We have more important things to be doing right now that arguing over silly things like this."

England made a face. "I hate it when you make rational points," he said unhappily. France beamed innocently back at him, suddenly all smiles again. It made England want to throw up, but instead he stared up at the sky for a few moments and then ordered, "Help me up."

"You're walking?" France glared at him disappointedly.

"You're going to have to smash my kneecaps if you want me to do otherwise," England retorted.

"I won't," France said as he got back on his own feet and planted his hands on his hips once more, "but Germany just might _when he catches us_."

"We're just going to have to take that chance," England told him firmly, finding his own way back to an upright position by pushing hard against the ground until he was up on his knees. It was a start, France thought, but unless England could crawl faster than he could walk, it wasn't going to do them much good.

"Fine," he said, however reluctantly. "But I'm going to laugh when all of your troops have gone home and you're still stuck here because you have too much pride to let someone help you."

"The problem isn't letting someone help me, France, it's letting _you_," England shot back. "Besides, I'm not in so much trouble that I can't walk for myself."

"_Very_ slowly," France grumbled, repeating his earlier taunt. "But if Germany shows up, I'm going to leave you in my dust."

"I have no doubt about that," England nodded agreeably. When France glanced over at him in confusion, England helpfully added, "I couldn't even _dream_ of being able to retreat faster than you, France. I'm not so full of myself as to think I could hold a candle to you in your national pastime, after all."

France hit him.

* * *

**Authors' Note:**

Historical Stuff:  


- Um...Amiens was besieged by the Germans and then fell on the twentieth. It has a pretty name and Warsaw doesn't have much else to say, historically. Have we told you how Nations heal? Battlefield stuff heals pretty quickly, especially if the actual country is doing well in the war. It's the non-battley stuff that you have to watch out for. Intentions matter, so if you're on the battlefield and BOOM, headshot, you'll just take a few days to get back up-it'll hurt like nobody's business, though. However, if the wound is symbolic of something, it'll take longer to heal. So if a bullet in the brain is someone's way of saying "I'm putting an end to your resistance," or "You can't stop my resistance," or "Your time in this war is over" or "I am JUSTICE" or whatever...then you'll take about week to week to wake up. It's all in the intentions.

- And now England and France talk about how France is kinda going to end up getting taken over at some point in the near future. (Or maybe the distant future, if we don't get back on a regular updating schedule.) And England shoves France in the basement. _That_, believe it or not, actually was kind of historical, according to Inside the Nazi War Machine: at one point, the German army took a whole bunch of prisoners, including a bunch of French, Belgian, and Dutch soldiers who hadn't wanted to fight in the first place, and whom the British, therefore, had locked up in cellars. Obviously England didn't leave France in the basement, but shoving France in the basement seemed like something that England would do, so we threw it in.

- And now we cut to Norway. Specifically, the Battle of Narvik. It looked at first like Norway and Team Allied Forces was going to win, but then Team Allied Forces had to evacuate their guys due to the drama happening in France and the Low Countries, which made things a whole lot more difficult for Norway, who fought on, hoping to defeat Team Germany anyway. (Spoilers: it doesn't work.)

- Aaaaand England and France retreat.

Authory Stuff:

Vilnius's Note: So, thanks to my recent discovery of the awesomeness that is Game of Thrones, it has taken me a truly absurd amount of time to write these historical notes. And in other news, I am now officially bored with summer break and would like to go back to school now. I'm pretty sure this is a record; usually I don't get bored with summer until July. Ugh. Two months of boredom until classes start...

Warsaw's Note: And while Vilnius has been watching Game of Thrones, I've been watching One Piece. Usually, long anime kind of scare me off because I don't get a lot of free time in which to watch anime, but I happened to catch a random episode on Toonami last weekend and I was hooked, despite not having much context. Ah, well...I guess I'm just a sucker for pirates. Now I'm sad I put off watching this show for as long as I did, but there's just so many episodes! But now that this chapter is done, I can go back to watching anime, reading history books, and drinking tea (which, along with writing, are basically all I do with my life)!

**You don't _have_ to review or anything, but we would really love you forever if you did... *insert puppy dog eyes here***

Also, Warsaw would like to take a moment to appreciate the fact that our word count for pure content (no date/location tags, notes of any kind, or titles) is 103,264. Um...squee?


	16. A Little Miracle

_No, we aren't actually dead. Just having some technical issues right now, namely the death of Warsaw's old computer, meaning that she lost a lot of previously-written drafts and such, including her scenes for this chapter. Lovely, huh? She cried a little bit. Now she's sharing a (really infuriating) computer with her mother, meaning that she has a lot less access to one than usual. Boo. But, on a more positive note, she also painted her room pink! Yay, pink! Oh, and, uh, she doesn't own Hetalia. Vilnius doesn't either._

**Chapter Sixteen: A Little Miracle  
**

_May 25, 1940  
__Vilnius, Lithuania_

Lithuania was squirming in his chair, something he seemed to be doing a lot lately, although he didn't remember being quite this nervous the last couple of times he'd been in a meeting with Russia.

Russia had shown up with absolutely no warning a few minutes ago and declared that he and Lithuania needed to have a talk, which Lithuania suspected was code for _a meeting in which Russia was as intimidating as possible, Lithuania spent most of the time worrying that this was going to end with a declaration of war, and Russia walked away with everything he wanted_.

The aforementioned talk ended up taking place in Lithuania's office, with the door closed in order to keep Lithuania's dog, Vytis, from interfering with the meeting and causing trouble. The dog was normally pretty well-behaved, but for whatever reason, that tended to go out the window when Russia was around, and while Vytis's hatred of Russia was usually only expressed through barking and growling, Lithuania didn't want to take any chances. And thus, the office door was shut. Vytis was probably lying in wait outside the door, but that was a problem that Lithuania could deal with after he finished dealing with the current, more pressing matter.

Lithuania was squirming in his chair as he read over the papers that Russia had given him, trying (without very much success) to pretend that Russia wasn't watching him and trying (without any success whatsoever) not to look as panicked as he was starting to feel. Russia was accusing Lithuania's government of abducting three Soviet soldiers. According to this document of his, two of the soldiers had been tortured to obtain Russian military secrets but managed to escape, and the third of them had been murdered. Somehow, Lithuania doubted that this was actually true.

"Russia, you know that I would never do something like this," Lithuania said, feeling somewhere on the spectrum between nervous about where Russia was going to take this and angry that Russia would accuse him of this.

Russia gave him a smile that was probably supposed to be reassuring, but came across more condescending than anything, which didn't help very much with Lithuania's whole nervous/angry thing. "Oh, don't worry; I'm not accusing you, personally," Russia said sweetly. "I'm sure you weren't involved in any of this, but unfortunately, not everybody in the world is as nice as you."

"_If_ something like this happened—" Lithuania began, but was cut off by Russia.

"Just because _you_ wouldn't do this, though, doesn't mean that your government didn't do it without your knowledge."

Lithuania found himself thinking that maybe Russia should take a closer look at the things his own government was up to behind closed doors before he started accusing other people's governments of working behind their Nations' backs. Of course, he didn't know for _sure_ that Russia's government was keeping secrets, but considering the way Russia had been acting since his revolution—and Lithuania had been unfortunate enough to get to witness some of these changes in behavior from a front row seat, and he had the scars to prove it—well, Lithuania got the impression that _something_ was very wrong with Russia's government, and he highly doubted that Russia would be so enthusiastic about his boss if he knew a little bit more about what was making him act differently.

However, Lithuania couldn't exactly say any of that out loud, so he opted for a much more diplomatic alternative. "I'm very sorry about whatever happened," he said. "I really don't think that my government did this, and I'm sure that this is all just some sort of misunderstanding, but of course I'll look into the matter immediately. I promise there will be a full investigation of the issue, and I am very sorry for any harm I may have indirectly caused to any of your people."

"Well, thank you for looking into the matter. Keep me posted, _da_?"

"Of course," Lithuania promised. "If you have any information about the matter: physical descriptions of anyone involved, any photographs, or interviews, or anything else that could further the investigation, I would really appreciate—"

Russia cut him off again, although honestly, Lithuania wasn't really all that surprised by it. He hadn't quite _expected _to be cut off, of course, but he certainly wasn't surprised when it happened. "This investigation is _your_ responsibility, Lithuania, not mine," Russia chided him. "You need to carry out your investigation on your own."

_I should have known it wouldn't be that easy_, Lithuania thought, but didn't say out loud. He sighed. "Okay, um, well, I'll definitely look into the matter and I'll keep you posted on whatever I find out," he said, more than a little nervous. If Russia was refusing to give him any information on the subject of an incident that probably hadn't happened to begin with, and was expecting him to manage to carry out a full investigation of the matter, there was no possible way that this was going to end well.

Russia nodded his head slightly. "I knew I could count on you," he told Lithuania fondly, getting up from his seat. "You will let me know as soon as you find something, _da_?"

"Of course," Lithuania agreed, following the other Nation's lead and standing hurriedly. His neighbor obviously had something planned; the question Lithuania had to answer was not _if_ but _what_. Also, _how am I supposed to get out of this one_? That puzzle, however, was even more difficult to solve. "I'll show you out," he offered helpfully, stepping towards the door to his office.

"Ah, thank you." Russia allowed the smaller country to move past him into the hall. Lithuania breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that there were no more accusations his neighbor felt the need to make, but froze when he felt a hand come down on his shoulder. He turned, waiting for Russia to say _whatever_ it was that he wanted to say. Russia smiled down at him in a way that was so genuine and perhaps even loving that Lithuania couldn't help but do a double take. "I can always count on you, Lithuania. It is nice to have someone I know I can trust."

Lithuania blinked. "Er…" He wasn't entirely sure _what_ to say to that. "Well, I-."

"These are very dangerous times," Russia continued. The smile on his face slipped as he gave Lithuania's shoulder a worried squeeze. "You will be careful, won't you?"

Lithuania cracked a small smile. "I'm always careful, Russia." He didn't mention that a certain massive, frozen Nation was the cause for a large portion of that caution.

"Yes," Russia agreed softly, "but sometimes that is not enough." The smile returned, still so sweet and honest. "So I will do what caution will not."

_I will protect you. _The words weren't actually spoken, but Lithuania heard them anyway, clear as could be. Because, no matter how messed up things got, Russia really did mean well. It was just that…his mind hadn't been in the best state since so many years ago, and even before that, he'd never had an easy life.

The Baltic Nation reached up and wrapped his own hand around Russia's. "I know." He managed a little smile of his own. "You be careful too, Russia."

Russia gave a silent nod and lowered his arm, allowing Lithuania to lead him to the door without another word. Lithuania closed the door behind him and groaned aloud, leaning up against the wall tiredly.

_Why does he always have to make things so complicated?_

-o-

_May 27, 1940  
__Dunkirk, France_

"All right," England said finally. "Let's not…_panic_ or anything silly like that." France turned around slowly and fixed his ally with the very apotheosis of the _Excuse _Me, But _What_ Just Came Out of Your Mouth? look. England shuffled a bit awkwardly in place under the weight of the glare before gesturing vaguely out to the open ocean before them. He gave an uncomfortable cough before continuing. "I mean, _sure_, we've got, oh, a couple hundred…_thousand_ troops to get out of here as soon as physically possible before they're all captured by the German army." _The as of yet unstoppable Germany army_, his brain corrected helpfully. He dearly wished that he could smack it. "But, er, that's not really _so_ horrible, is it? We can definitely still get out of here." He attempted to look confident. And failed.

"Conveniently forgetting that 'getting out of here' means abandoning my country to Germany, of course," France scoffed, crossing his arms. England rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Yes, well, _I'm_ not the one who said that the war in France was-," he began, drawing himself up so as to make his point with all of the dignity and authority in the world.

France, in a truly inspiring display of maturity and self-control, stamped his foot hard on the ground, and then repeated it a few times for good measure, throwing in a nice, frenzied arm flail in case his message hadn't gotten across clearly without it. England watched, unimpressed. "I know what I said!" the (very nearly defeated) country snapped, still flapping like some sort of a demented parakeet. "But that doesn't mean—that doesn't mean I have to _give up_, does it?"

"Well…" England couldn't help but respond, trying not to smirk as he tapped a contemplative finger against his chin. It was all fine and good that his previous pep talk had gotten through to France, but now that his ally's anti-surrender stubbornness was popping up in the most inconvenient of places, he was beginning to think that perhaps he should've kept his mouth closed.

"Shut up!" France barked, turning his back to the younger Nation and stubbornly crossing his arms. England stifled most of a snort, but traces of the rude snuffle-like sound still slipped through his fingers despite his best efforts to the contrary. France whirled around long enough to _point_, in a way he clearly thought was menacing, at England—because, as always, that was just _so_ terrifying—and then twisted back to his original position and turned up his nose.

"Bloody immature _frog_," England mumbled under his breath, spitting out each word as though they were particularly vulgar curses, making an utterly disgusted face as he reached out to poke his ally on the shoulder a few times. "France, stop being a brat and help me get at least _some_ of these troops out of here."

His government really was making a spectacular effort to do just that, too. They'd begun rallying up ships to transport the personnel home, and not just military vessels, either. The people back home had successfully rallied up a slew of private and commercial ships as well: fishing craft and pleasure boats, yachts and ferries, all coming to the aid of the soldiers stranded in France. _Oooh_, and it just made England so proud.

National pride alone didn't accomplish much, though, so he determinedly refocused his attentions towards getting his ally to help him make sure that things went smoothly. Sure, France didn't want to leave his country to be conquered, and England totally understood, but the _least_ he could do was to make sure that _somebody_ managed to get out of this alive. If France fell, then England needed to be in a position to keep fighting and if his entire bloody expeditionary force was captured…well, let's just say that he wouldn't be in a position to do anything except start negotiation and hope for reasonably merciful peace terms. Ick.

France whacked England's hand away from his person. "I'm not going to help you _abandon_ your _ally_ to the _enemy_," he huffed, emphasizing the hell out of any word he thought might be able to guilt trip England into staying to defend his country. England, meanwhile, was unfazed, wondering exactly who he could possibly be abandoning his ally to _but_ the enemy.

"France, we've talked about this," he countered, scraping the very bottom of the patience barrel because they _had_ talked about it, again and again and again. It wasn't as though England _liked_ leaving any country in this horribly shameful state of retreat, after all, but they had to be reasonable about things like this. "You know I don't like this any more than you do, but-."

"Oh, _really_?" France turned on the other Nation, giving him what he clearly hoped was the Mother of All Puppy-Dog Pouts. Sadly, it had nowhere near that amount of deadly, destructive power and fell utterly flat.

"I could say I'm enjoying the hell out of this, if that would make you feel better?" England suggested snidely. France's mouth fell open in horror and England quickly added a disclaimer of, "I'm only _joking_, France," hoping to keep the breakdown from getting any worse. France's lower lip continued to quiver dangerously anyway. England sighed and tried to think of something else to say. "France, come on now. If we don't get my people out of here and you _do_ surrender…" To his great credit, the words "as usual" did not find their way off of England's tongue. He was very proud of that fact. "There won't be anybody to come help you out, will there?"

"That wouldn't be a problem if you would actually help me defend my country," the taller man grumbled loudly, ignoring the fact that what he'd just said really wasn't true.

_You don't have a prayer either way_, England thought unhappily. What he said aloud, however, was more in the vein of a reasonable argument. His very last, desperate move. The trump card.,, terrifying in its slight possibility. "France, listen to this. Let's just say you _do_ surrender to Germany, all right?"

"If you would just-."

"_Hypothetically_," England interrupted loudly, reclaiming his rightful place as the leader of the conversation. "Hypothetically, you surrender, and all of my troops who are trapped here get captured. All right?" France nodded, arms still gloomily crossed, clearly not intending to give up on his side of the argument any time soon. "And so, at such a great disadvantage, what am I supposed to do then?"

"Negotiate a peace?" France suggested suspiciously, waiting for the real sting of England's attack.

"Well, naturally, that'd be my first choice, but let's just say, again _hypothetically_, that Germany doesn't want to do that. Let's say he decides to attack, and I—not that I _would_ or anything, but I-."

"Lose?" France curled his lip into a sneer. "That's a little thing called karma, _mon cher_."

"Yes, well," England pushed on hurriedly, not wanting to dwell on such bleak ideas. "If _you_ surrender and _I_ surrender, where does that leave us?" France blinked obliviously back at him. "At Germany's house, France," the younger Nation sighed, relinquishing the answer he'd thought painfully apparent. "Together. _All the time_."

The look on his ally's face cycled through a number of increasingly frantic emotions: surprise, slowly-dawning horror, genuine shock, terror, disgust, and a couple others that made England raise an eyebrow. He wasn't exactly sure what _that_ one was, he thought curiously, watching as France's face appeared to melt off. England tipped his head to the side. "Are you…_dying_?" he questioned at last, his tone cautious because he wasn't entirely sure if he'd been serious or not.

France's expression returned abruptly to normal, or at least the semi-panicked frown that had recently become disturbingly commonplace amongst the Allies. "All right," he said, gathering up the shattered and scattered remains of his dignity. "Why don't we try and get some of your troops out of here, then?"

England marked a point for himself on the little scoreboard in his head and casually nodded his assent. "Right." He looked around, surveying the scene. "Er, _right_," he had to repeat himself because that quick look around had reminded him just how daunting the task ahead of them really was. "Let's…go to work."

Oh, but they had so much to do and so little time, and England and France were all too aware of it. Although neither would admit, both of them kept casting the occasional paranoid glance over their shoulders, half expecting to see Germany and his men charging them, rifles at the ready. Sure, the defenses they'd managed to get up in time had protected them thus far, but Germany was still fighting back, keeping them under heavy artillery fire as they worked. And, when they weren't peeking behind them, they were looking ahead, out into the open waters. When all their ships were sailing out into the Channel, they were open to any attack from Germany's air force.

England wrung his hands nervously, staring intently over France's shoulder at some handwritten plans that had recently been shoved at them by some equally frantic underling. He let out a little whistle, causing France to turn around, eyebrows raised expectantly. "It's just…" the shorter Nation said hesitantly as it became obvious to his ally that he hadn't actually planned to say anything. "This is very…"

"Insane," France put in helpfully. "This is very _insane_ and we are very _insane_ and," he added, flashing England a huge, megawatt grin, "we are going to _die_."

England wasn't sure if he was serious or not, and he found that more than a little disconcerting. "Yes, well," he coughed, moving on quickly. "I was going to say that…if we keep evacuating personnel at this rate…"

"We're going to…" France prompted knowingly. He'd been reading the same sheet, after all.

"_Die_, France," England finished in a tone that suggested that his mind was somewhere else. "I do wonder how I could be expected to put up a fight with so many of my ground forces captured…" followed softly as England turned his gaze up to the sky, angling his hand to shield his eyes. "We're going to need our own little miracle, aren't we, France?" he asked distractedly. France matched his position, scanning the clouds to see if his ally was looking at anything in particular, but there didn't seem to be anything at the end of England's line of sight.

"Didn't we always?" France sighed, remembering their hauntingly accurate pre-war panic. Granted, they weren't being defeated for the reasons they'd frantically predicted, but still…

"Er," was England's less than useful response. After a moment, he remembered where he was and added, "I suppose we'll have to leave a bit early if things start to look really bad, but until then-."

"You're leaving?" France cut in suddenly, looking sharply towards the other Nation.

"Yes, France," England told him, eyeing the other man curiously. "We're not exactly meant to stand around and let ourselves be captured, after all."

"But…but you can't go!" France spluttered, stepping away from England and giving his arms another enthusiastic flap. "You have to stay and help me defend the country!"

"It's not _my_ country," England reminded him with a glance towards the retreating little ships. It occurred to him that there were probably nicer ways to word what he'd just said.

France stared at him. "You're not staying," he said softly, as though it were the first time the thought had ever occurred to him. The first time he'd connected the departure of the soldiers with that of their Nation.

England echoed the tone. "You are." A moment of stunned silence, and then, "France, don't be ridiculous! You're no use to me or your people if you're locked up in Berlin."

"I can't just abandon-!"

"Well, if you _want_ to spend the rest of the war sweeping Germany's floors, that's bloody _fine_ with me, but you-."

"Of course, _you_ wouldn't have a problem leaving your allies to rot-."

"It's hardly my fault that you couldn't take care of your country in the first place-!"

"We're _allies_! It's _definitely_ your fault!"

"Only a little bit!"

"Try _half_!"

"Try _this_! _Britannia fist_!"

"Ack! That's…you can't just tack "Britannia" onto whatever you want! Take this, you cheating-!"

At that moment, England and France were reminded that they had more important things to be doing than fighting. And they were reminded by a great, big _boom_ sounding, entirely too close for comfort, courtesy of Germany and his ceaseless artillery bombardment.

"Oh," England said loudly, clearing his throat. "Perhaps we should…discuss this at a later date?"

"I think perhaps we should," France agreed quietly, disentangling his limbs from England's. Normally, he would've been entirely too happy with their sudden embrace, but this was a bit different, given that it had been caused by a bout of panic and a very loud shriek from one of them, or possibly both.

England pushed himself back onto his feet and dusted himself off awkwardly. "We can get along for at least a few minutes, can't we?" he asked, pretending that it wasn't a genuine question that he didn't know the answer to.

"Of course we can," France responded, brushing himself off as well and pretending that his answer hadn't been a hopeful guess.

He'd been right, though, and maybe that was a little miracle right there.

-o-

_Near the Lys River, Belgium  
May 28, 1940_

As a general rule of thumb, surrendering didn't usually lead to the formation of spectacular friendships. The person surrendering tended to be dealing with some combination of depression and barely-suppressed murderous rage. The person they were surrendering to, meanwhile, was given a situation where they could get away with being a total jerk.

Of course, when the person in question was _already_ an obnoxious jerk, what would normally be an incredibly unpleasant situation very quickly became almost painful to endure.

Belgium supposed that people always wanted to punch out the guy they had to surrender to, but she couldn't quite remember any time in the past that she'd actually had to sit on her hands to keep herself from actually reaching over the table and doing her best to give Prussia a black eye. Prussia, meanwhile, was lounging in his chair like a king on a throne, toying absently with the pen that Belgium would soon be using to sign the surrender papers. None of this was exactly helping Belgium's attempts at not punching him, and his smirk, which most of Europe already wanted to punch off his face on a normal day, was only making things worse. But then again, everything about Prussia tended to make things worse.

Belgium was supposed to be reading over the document, but she was finding that difficult thanks to the fact that Prussia's obligatory gloating session (no doubt the first of many) was providing some incredibly annoying background noise. It was currently taking everything Belgium had not to lose her temper. She kept reminding herself that she really couldn't afford to lose her temper with her new boss, that ticking him off before she even finished formally surrendering would probably end badly for her, as well as for her people.

She still sat on her hands, not quite trusting herself not to punch that smirk off Prussia's face or die trying. She also bit her tongue to keep herself from saying something she'd regret.

Finally, Belgium finished reading over the document. She looked up and, much to her shock, Prussia wasn't too busy praising himself to notice. "You finished reading?" he asked.

"Yes." _Despite your best efforts to hinder the process_.

Prussia tossed her the pen he'd been playing with during his monologue. "Sign away, then."

Belgium sighed and pressed the tip of the pen to the paper, just over the little black line that was waiting for her signature, then paused. "Hey, Prussia? Can I ask you something?"

Prussia thought about it for a second, or at least pretended to. Just as Belgium started to think that he was going to refuse just to prove that he could, he finally nodded. "Go ahead."

Belgium took a moment to remind herself not to punch Prussia. It was a lot harder now that one of her hands was free. Once she was mostly sure that her body was going to listen to her, she asked "did you actually bother to fight me in person more than, what was it? Once? Maybe twice?"

Prussia at least had the decency to stop smirking at her for a second or so. "Yeah, about that…it was nothing personal."

"I know that it wasn't personal," Belgium said in a tone that she probably shouldn't have been using with her new boss. "That's exactly what I'm objecting to. Invasions are _supposed_ to be personal. If you're going to invade my country, you're supposed to fight me yourself. That's how it _works_."

"I know," Prussia said, for once dropping his cocky attitude, at least a little. "I probably should have, you know, actually fought you. It's just that I have issues with France, the opportunity for me to fight him directly presented itself, and I couldn't resist. It's not that I don't respect you or anything."

Belgium was unimpressed. She gave Prussia a Look. "So now you just show up here to make me sign the surrender papers, you toss out a lame excuse about how you'd have bothered to show me the slightest bit of respect by following through on your invasion in person, if only something more important hadn't come up—"

"You know, for someone who's supposed to be surrendering, you've got quite an attitude," Prussia interrupted, his tone warning Belgium to shut up now while he was still asking nicely. Belgium chose a different course of action.

"Yeah, yeah, _you are weak and I am not, loser, so kiss my feet and beg for mercy_ or some such nonsense," Belgium said, imitating Prussia's accent. It actually wasn't that bad an imitation, which is probably why Prussia's disapproving glare faded after a second or two and he ended up snickering a little.

"Okay, that was actually kind of funny," he reluctantly admitted, now leaning his chair back on two legs. Belgium hoped he'd fall over backwards. "Now are you going to sign those papers anytime soon?"

Belgium sighed. "Yes, I am. But while I'm doing that, would it really kill you to at least apologize? The fact that you didn't respect me enough to fight me in person was kind of insulting. I mean, I know I'm not in any position to _demand_ an apology, but…"

"Fair enough," Prussia said. "I'm sorry for running off to fight France when I should have fought you directly. I didn't mean to insult you. And I do respect you as an opponent. Heck, from what I heard, you put up a pretty awesome fight." For a moment or two, Belgium was pretty surprised, not having expected Prussia to apologize properly. It wasn't exactly something that happened often. Heck, he'd even _looked_ apologetic for once. Then his smirk returned and ruined the moment. "Now kiss my feet and beg for mercy," he demanded.

Belgium groaned and rolled her eyes. "Um, no thanks. But just out of curiosity, do you say that king of thing _every_ time you win something?"

"Pretty much," Prussia said, giving Belgium the most infuriating grin she'd ever been subjected to. "And the best part is, you can't do a thing about it. So, now that you got your apology, it's time for you to actually sign the surrender papers so we can get out of

Belgium put the tip of the pen back onto the little black mark she'd made on the paper when she'd almost signed earlier, then hesitated for a second, staring at the black line on the paper. She glanced up at Prussia for a second, feeling absolutely miserable and maybe a little sick, the temporary almost-good mood she'd gotten from his apology evaporating. Finally, she added her signature on the appropriate line, then pushed the papers across the table toward her new boss, who finally put all four legs of the chair back on the ground. He gave her a smirk. "Ready to go pack your things?" he asked, as if she had any choice in the situation. Belgium didn't bother to reply, and silently followed him to the car that was waiting outside.

-o-

_May 28, 1940  
Narvik, Norway_

_Recaptured_ was a really nice word. Norway was hoping to apply it to as much of his country as possible. That is, of course, assuming that the word _uncaptured_ didn't apply. _Uncaptured_ was an even nicer word than _recaptured_.

This little discussion of Norway's linguistic preferences was relevant to the situation at hand because _recaptured_ was a word he was hoping to apply to the city of Narvik at the nearest opportunity, namely _now_. It would certainly be nice to start winning back his territory, after all, because good news was especially desirable right then. The English and French troops were going to evacuate soon. Not the Nations themselves, of course, because Norway hadn't seen so much as a glimpse of either since he'd been invaded. Weren't they just the best allies ever? Well, Norway supposed, France was having enough trouble in his own country and England was obviously trying to help him out. It made sense.

Wait, no it didn't. England and France were terrible at working together; they'd probably been arguing since the war began, and bickering like children couldn't possibly have been conducive to winning _anything_. In retrospect, Norway wasn't entirely sure why they'd go near each other if they knew they were going to fight. He tried to stay away from people he didn't get along with.

It was just that Denmark could be so very difficult to avoid…

Norway tapped his foot anxiously and looked around. Shouldn't Austria have been here by now? It was really rude to keep your enemy waiting, especially when you were the one inconveniencing them with an invasion. Norway had headed off to the outskirts of the city for a one-on-one fight, as Nations so often did. There was really only one person they needed to focus on beating, after all; the battle would happen regardless of their presence and this way they didn't have to worry about being caught by stray bullets from the regular soldiers. It was generally considered polite, then, for Nations to duke it out off to the side of the fray, and given that Nations could always find their opponents in a war, Austria should've been there by now.

Technically, Austria could've shown up with an infantry division and had Norway surrounded and outnumbered, but since that such an act was on the Nations' "war crimes" list, it wasn't likely. Telling your soldiers to fire on another Nation specifically had been banned on the grounds that it wasn't their place. Regular people fought regular people; Nations fought Nations. That was how it was supposed to be.

Norway sighed, peeked out from behind the building he was using as cover, and then ducked back into safety. Ah, _there_ was the slowpoke aristocrat. Took him long enough.

Austria almost certainly knew that Norway was around somewhere; he could sense the presence of an enemy Nation the same way that Norway knew that Austria was there, so there was really no point in trying to stay hidden.

He peeked around the corner of his building, aimed carefully, and fired. Austria stumbled slightly as a bloodstain started spreading across his shoulder. It didn't take Austria long to find the source of the bullet, and Norway barely managed to duck back behind the building in time to avoid taking a bullet to the head.

The bullet Norway had put in Austria's shoulder didn't slow him down very much; Nations tended to have a higher pain tolerance than humans, probably because they had a lot more _practice_ at tolerating pain than humans. He'd need to do a lot more damage if he was going to win this. Norway glanced back around the corner of the building, planning to put his next bullet in the irritating noble's brain, but Austria had evidently been waiting for that, and Norway was forced once again to duck back behind the building to avoid getting shot.

This wasn't going to work. Hiding out behind this building wasn't going to recapture the city; it was just going to turn this into a contest of who could make the other guy run out of bullets first.

Norway took a breath, leaning back against the wall of the building for a moment longer, then abruptly stepped forward, just slightly out from behind the building and shot at Austria.

His first bullet missed, but the second hit Austria in the stomach, which was a whole lot more distracting than a shoulder wound. Unfortunately, the irritating noble managed to shoot Norway too, in the right arm. Norway sucked in a breath, glancing quickly down at the wound as he switched his gun to his left hand, then fired again at Austria. Austria tried to dodge, but was a bit preoccupied with the newly formed hole in his stomach and wasn't quite as fast as he could have been. The bullet caught him in the side, and Norway's lips quirked up into a small smile for a second. There was no way Austria was going to win this, not as injured as he was by this point.

Of course, injured or not, Austria wasn't going down without a fight, and while Norway was mentally congratulating himself, Austria was catching his almost-lost balance and aiming his gun. The bullet slammed into Norway's chest, and sent him stumbling backward and falling to the ground. Fortunately, it hadn't hit any major organs, or at least Norway was pretty sure that it hadn't, but it still hurt like heck. It was _definitely _time to finish up this battle as quickly as possible.

Norway fired two shots at Austria, but his aim was off, causing the first to miss wildly. The second caught the aristocrat in the right shoulder, narrowly missing his throat, and as drops of blood started dripping down Austria's uniform, he evidently decided that he should probably leave _before_ he got killed.

Austria started to back off, gun still at the ready. He fired at Norway, hoping to at least slow him down, but pain and blood loss were clearly taking their toll. The bullet missed Norway completely, instead embedding itself in the wall of Norway's building. Norway, meanwhile, got back behind the wall—no sense in getting shot by an accidentally-well-placed bullet, after all. As Austria stumbled away from the battlefield, probably just minutes away from collapsing from blood loss, Norway fired one more shot at him. He'd aimed for Austria's chest, but managed to miss wildly, and it occurred to Norway that maybe Austria wasn't the only one who had lost a lot of blood.

The battle finally over, Norway headed off in the other direction in search of a medic.

* * *

**Author's Note**

Historical Stuff

- So first, Russia accuses Lithuania's government of kidnapping Russian soldiers. Lithuania doesn't think that that actually happened, but he promises to look into the issue anyway. But then Russia refuses to give him any information that could help him in the investigation, which brings the likelihood of anything good coming out of this to pretty much zero. Also, this is going to lead to other drama in a couple of chapters.

- Next is Operation Dynamo, in which England and France are stuck at Dunkirk trying to evacuate as many of their soldiers as possible while they still can, so that Germany doesn't manage to capture the entire British Expeditionary Force. Fortunately, on May 24, Germany's government had inexplicably (well, actually they were concerned about exposed flanks again) ordered Team Germany's forces to halt, rather than attacking Team Allies right away, which gave Team Allies more time for the evacuation. Team Germany got to advance again on May 26, but by that point, Team Allies had been able to evacuate a lot of their forces, so Team Germany didn't manage to capture England's army.

- And now, Belgium surrenders. She actually put up a pretty darn good fight, but unfortunately, Prussia was more concerned with his grudge against France than with finishing the invasion he started, so Belgium's pretty darn good fight was mostly offscreen. (Translated, that means that we kinda screwed up when planning out the chapters. _Sorry about that!_) Either way, Belgium eventually was forced to surrender, and now she has the misfortune of having to be in the car with Prussia all the way back to Berlin. That cannot _possibly_ be fun.

- Meanwhile, Norway continues fighting Austria and does really well. Unfortunately, Team Allies ended up evacuating because of everything going on in France, so Austria wins in the end and, you know, Norway gets taken over and stuff. But for now, Norway is winning. Congratulations, Norway!

Authory Stuff

Vilnius' Note: You know, I expected it to be easier to update on time during the summer, since we wouldn't have homework or anything to worry about. Turns out I was _very_ wrong. Really, why is it that we can write a chapter a week during the school year (except around exam time), but we can barely get anything at all written during the summer? I'm _really_ sorry about our inability to update properly during the summer. And speaking of our inability to update properly, our parents have decided that we're visiting family this weekend, so from Thursday to Sunday, we'll be in North Carolina with no internet. We'll _definitely_ get our chapter written (since there's nothing _else_ to do on a day-long car ride), but unless we get back sooner than expected, we're might end up posting on Monday morning.

Warsaw's Note: There used to be a little paint spatter on my wall from the last time my room was painted. The wall was blue but the trim is white and a little had dripped down onto the wall unnoticed before it dried. The thing is...it ended up shaped like a dinosaur. No, guys, I'm entirely serious. I drew a face and gave it a little speech bubble saying, "Rawr." I have a picture somewhere...


	17. A Twist of the Knife

_Nope, it's still not ours._

In other news, sorry for not updating, but there was drama. A lot of drama. First our mom got hurt while exercising and there was going-to-the-doctor drama and running-to-the-store-for-medicine-and-bandages drama and some weird dinner-making drama that didn't really make much sense. Then, just as that died down, Vilnius managed to wreck the car, which led to insurance drama and car-repair drama and...yeah. Ugh. Worst summer ever.

P.S. Oh, lookit! Warsaw added an actual title!

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen: A Twist of the Knife  
**

_June 3, 1940  
Dunkirk, France_

Germany was frustrated. Germany was so _very_ frustrated.

See, in his book, when you had the bad guys cornered, when you'd been outmaneuvering and outclassing them at every turn, when you had them on the run for the entirety of an invasion…you finished them off, lest they escape to start over and beat you another day. And maybe it was just him, but it seemed to Germany that when you had the enemy's troops trapped between your own army and a large body of water that they had no means of crossing, the best choice was to keep attacking, _not_ to say something like, "Oh, we'll get 'em with the air force, the ground forces can just cool their heels for now."

Not only did that seem like an inferior plan to Germany, it had also proved itself a spectacular failure. England and France's troops had more or less been completely evacuated by this point, and their respective personifications were likely long gone, as well. He had been _this close_, too, and it would've been so easy…

Yes, Germany was frustrated. He'd searched for a silver lining-well, maybe this would make it easier to negotiate a peace with England. The thing was, however, that Germany didn't really _want_ a peace with England; he wanted to beat him up as payback for the last war. Well, less the war itself and more the resolution of it. The Treaty of Versailles was not exactly something that was so easy to forgive and forget.

Normally, Germany wasn't much of a pacer. He was really more the "sit down and glare at things" type, but since sitting still was the cause of his problems in the first place, he figured that taking a seat would only make him angrier. So, instead, he was wearing a trench in the ground by walking back and forth across it, grumbling under his breath and trying his hardest not to swear loudly at anyone who tried to talk to him. Terrorizing his troops wouldn't solve anything, after all. Granted, neither would stalking around, but at least that made him feel better.

So, pacing. No swearing. Not at other people, at least. It was the best Germany could do at the moment, and while it wasn't quite _helping_, it wasn't making the situation any worse, either. That was a good enough compromise for now.

A loud cheeping noise interrupted Germany's bitter, vulgar thoughts. Well, not quite cheeping, but more like…squawking? Er, no, that's not right, perhaps screeching is a better fit, or maybe just some odd combination of the three. Either way, it was a grievous offense against Germany's poor eardrums. He winced, recognizing the source of the loud and unpleasant noise instantly.

Gilbird could be just as obnoxious as his owner, given the inclination.

Germany sighed and held out a hand for the bird to land on. The little yellow chick did so, tucking his wings back into the fluffy mass that was his body and giving a little peep around the piece of paper in his mouth to indicate that Germany was to take it. Germany did so, and the bird peeped again, in a sort of expectant way.

Germany gave Gilbird a hesitant, two-fingered pat on the head. The chick, apparently appeased for now, fluttered up onto Germany's head and, though the Nation didn't see, contentedly drifted off to sleep. Rolling his eyes, Germany quickly unrolled the small piece of paper in his hands and scanned the messy scrawl that was his brother's handwriting, his mind helpfully rendering the quick note into Prussia's voice, just to remind Germany who had sent it. This did not help his budding headache. At all.

_Hey, West! How's Dunkirk? Seeing a lot of action, huh? HA! Have fun sitting around being __lame__ while the rest of us keep on kicking ass and taking names! I'll let you know when I finish conquering France for you._

_ Sincerely, your beloved and significantly more awesome brother Prussia_

After all that was a really ugly and poorly drawn face sticking out its tongue. It had obviously been hastily scribbled in, rather like the rest of the note, because one of the eyes-or at least the lopsided, vacant ovals that passed for eyes, anyway-was only half on the face, and the other looked more like a square than a circle. Germany had half a mind to send back an art critique. The other half of his mind was advocating replying with one word: ass. Preferably in all capital letters and gone over a few times to make it even darker. Just in case Prussia wouldn't get the message otherwise, unlikely as that was.

Actually, he'd probably find it hilarious. Germany flipped the note over and carefully jotted down his assessment of the drawing then, because Prussia was less likely to be amused by that. He then whistled loudly, trying to get the bird, who was still pretending to be a hat, to come down. Gilbird slept through the first and second attempts at summoning, and was only awakened by the third because it was accompanied by a gentle poke. Gilbird blinked sleepily at Germany's finger, once, twice, and then bit it for good measure.

Germany winced and gave the piece of paper in between his fingers a little shake. Gilbird took it and, with one last disdainful look at his master's little brother, untucked his wings and flapped off into the midday sun.

Germany watched him go and secretly hoped a little bit that Prussia would get himself shot or something. Non-fatally, of course, because that would've been inconvenient, but just something to shut him up for a little while. Yes, a bullet in the shoulder would do nicely.

After savoring that thought for a few more moments-it wasn't like his brother would _stay_ injured for more than a few days at the most, after all-Germany went back to pacing. This ditch of his wasn't going to make itself, after all, now was it?

-o-

_June 3, 1940  
A Reasonably Sized Fishing Boat, the English Channel_

This, France thought bitterly, was one of the parts of being the personification of a country that really sucked.

Actually, it wasn't just _one_ of the parts; it was a _couple_ of them, each more unpleasant than the next. First of all, it was retreating, and that did not exactly do wonders for France's confidence level. Nor did the rather embarrassing fact that pretty much all he'd been doing was running away since the invasion had stated just a little more than a month ago, no less. _Pitiful_, was what France didn't say aloud. This little escape from Dunkirk was also a sign that the Allies were straight-up losing, and a pretty clear sign at that. That just wasn't _right_; France and England were supposed to be two of Europe's greatest powers. They weren't supposed to get completely and utterly trounced by someone so much younger than they were (even if Germany did have Prussia on his side), especially not when they'd soundly beat him only twenty years ago. And after everything they'd done in the name of peace… Besides, if retreating did a number on France's self-confidence, then imagine how he felt with Germany _crushing_ him, minimal effort required. Here's a hint: it wasn't good.

There was yet another reason that France was feeling lower than the belly of a snake at that moment, and no matter what England said to try and convince him otherwise, France till felt like a coward for leaving some of his troops stranded at Dunkirk. England did too, obviously; you could see it on his face when he thought no one was looking. But still, at least England's soldiers had been leaving the continent _en masse_ on the grounds that none of them were really looking to get captured in the name of a homeland that wasn't theirs. France, on the other hand, didn't have that excuse. He _was_ the homeland, after all, and yet here he was on his way across the Channel, anyway. Sure, as England kept insistently telling him, it was important for Nations to evacuate a hopeless situation, but that never made it any easier. Not at all.

France curled his arms a little tighter around his knees and leaned back against the side of the fishing boat on which he and England had hitched their ride. England, bubbly with pride in his people for managing to pull off this man-made miracle, was chatting eagerly about the "good old days" with the owner of said boat and was in the process of slowly switching his accent to match the fisherman's without actually noticing a thing. France would've been all too happy to tease him about it if he hadn't been so busy being miserable over there in the corner.

"Oi! France!" England called, coming over towards his ally. If there had been any more spring in his step, France thought unhappily, he would've tripped him. England reached the mopey Nation and crossed his arms, frowning down at him. "What, are you just going to sit here and pout all the way across the Channel?" he demanded incredulously.

France glared up at him. _Go die_. "How can you be so cheerful?" he grumbled. "You're losing, too, you know."

"Oh, well, by all means then, please pardon my appreciation of the fact that we've just avoided the capture of my entire expeditionary force . Silly me, I thought that was a _good_ thing."

France tried to think of a clever comeback, maybe something about England's newfound Liverpool accent, but he was interrupted by a sudden jolt of pain. He winced and pulled his knees in tighter. _What the heck?_

England cocked his head to the side. "Are you all right?"

"I-," France began. Another painful sensation struck the pit of his stomach and he let out a little whimper. "Ow," he mumbled in shock, looking up at his ally as they both came to the same conclusion at the same time.

"He's bombing you, isn't he?" England asked unnecessarily. At France's dejected nod, he gave a knowing little sigh. "Where?"

The older Nation let out another pained squeak before answering. "Paris," he admitted softly.

"Oh." England was silent for a moment. "Yes, well," he said softly, clearing his throat, "Just…stay like that, then." He wiggled his fingers at France in a manner that was probably supposed to indicate that, by "stay like that," he'd meant "stay curled up in your awkward little Ball of Misery, there's a good chap."

"Does it help?" France really wanted to know, shifting his position a bit in the empty hopes that it would somehow make his plight a little more bearable.

"I expect it's psychosomatic, but to a degree, yes." The island Nation gave France a sympathetic half-smile. "That's _some_thing, isn't it?"

France supposed he was right, although he couldn't help but suspect that England's comment would've been worth more had he not thought to mention that fact that the helpfulness of the position was all in France's head. Placebos were generally more effective when you didn't know that they were placebos, after all.

With a slight tired groan of his own, England carefully sat down beside his ally. "We really weren't ready for this one, were we?" He was speaking more to the open sea air than to anything or anyone else, and he then added a, "Bloody hell, France…" for good measure. "We really should've known he'd do something like this. After Versailles-."

"We _did_ know," France harshly corrected, head buried in his knees, a trait with slightly decreased the impact of his words. "We just didn't do anything about it."

"Germany's not been subtle, has he?" England agreed reluctantly. France mumbled an unintelligible response before breaking off into a cry of pain. England just sort of looked at him, somewhat embarrassed and unsure of what, exactly, he was supposed to do to help.

"Paris," France whimpered wearily. "Why does it have to be _Paris_?" Because of all the cities in all the world, Paris was his favorite. And not just because it was his capitol; there was simply nothing and nowhere that France loved more.

"I know how you feel," England offered as helpfully as he could. It wasn't helpful at all, however, so he gave the older country a quick, awkward pat on the arm as well, trying to provide moral support without having to actually put anything into words. In a last ditch effort to make the less-than ideal circumstances a bit better, he said, "We'll get through this."

France honestly wasn't so sure.

-o-

_June 10, 1940  
Trondheim, Norway_

Austria was a pompous little bugger, and Norway really, really didn't want to surrender to him. Admittedly, Norway didn't exactly want to surrender to _anybody_, but Austria was particularly annoying because he apparently had some kind of superhuman ability that made it possible for him to look about fifty times more smug and arrogant than anybody else could possibly look in any given situation, which made him about fifty times worse to surrender to. He didn't really gloat out loud, but he didn't need to; his expression did all the gloating for him. Of course, even taking into account the superhuman arrogance powers that Austria apparently possessed, Norway was utterly baffled as to how Austria managed to look so impressively arrogant when he was almost as beat up as Norway was. There is a certain bloodstain to clean fabric ratio, a certain number of rips, tears, and bullet holes that can be found on your clothes, a certain quantity of visible bandages, and once you go past that point, it doesn't matter if you're on the winning side or the losing side of the war because you've officially reached the point where you stop looking like you took part in a valiant struggle and start looking like you got run over by a stray tank or two. It's not supposed to be possible to look arrogant while also looking like you got run over by a stray tank or two, and yet, Austria managed to pull it off.

Norway was entirely too well aware of the fact that he didn't look similarly impressive. With that option off the table, Norway was hoping for the next best thing: defiant. He wasn't entirely sure if he was managing it; he knew he looked sufficiently angry, but he couldn't quite tell if it was being canceled out by the fact that he was also feeling a bit of self-loathing and nervousness that, if they were showing, were probably damaging his potentially defiant expression. Another factor that was probably getting in the way was the fact that he felt a bit sick. He couldn't tell if he felt like he was going to throw up or pass out, but he sure felt inclined to do at least one of those things, and he was pretty sure that it would be impossible to look defiant in either case.

Norway flipped to the next page of the document sitting on the table in front of him. He read over the first few lines with distaste, which was difficult for two reasons. For one thing, reading the terms of his surrender made him remember that in a couple minutes, he'd have to actually sign those papers and surrender, so reading the document was like a stab wound and every word was a twist of the knife.

Also, the whole time, Austria was just sitting there _looking _at him, all pompous and aristocratic and utterly infuriating, which was making it hard to focus. It's hard to read something you really don't want to read when there's someone sitting across the table from you, watching you with an expression that just _begs _to be punched off their face.

Norway looked up at Austria with an annoyed and (hopefully) defiant glare.

"You're finished reading already?" Austria asked, obviously knowing perfectly well that Norway _wasn't_ finished reading already, and dropping a not-particularly-subtle, but still relatively polite hint for Norway to get back to reading.

Norway sighed. "No," he said, and went back to reading the document. A fresh stab wound and a page or so of knife twisting later, Norway finished reading and looked back up at Austria, who pushed a pen across the table toward him without a word. Norway picked up the pen and fiddled with it for a second, trying to find some way to put off having to sign the document.

"For what it's worth, you put up an impressive fight," Austria told him quietly, apparently having guessed what Norway was trying to do, and giving him a bit of help with it.

He sounded sincere, but Norway mentally categorized it as somewhere between condescending and mocking because it was easier to deal with. Surrendering to an arrogant, condescending jerk was, oddly enough, easier than surrendering to someone who was being nice about the whole thing. It was easier to be defiant when the other guy was openly mocking you, after all. And besides, no matter how good Austria's intentions were, it still stung to have to listen to him say that Norway had done really well, because no matter how good Norway had been, the fact that he was sitting here meant that Austria had done better and was just being polite by not bringing that part up. At least if he'd been gloating, Norway could have mentally countered it with all the times that Austria had been losing. That strategy tended to lose its impact when the other guy did it for you, leaving nothing but the implied _but I was better_ hanging around at the end of the speech.

Norway almost wished that it was Prussia sitting across the table from him, instead of Austria. At least he'd had experience in ignoring Prussia's gloating, since it happened at random intervals no matter _what_ was going on. Tuning out the steady stream of _look at me, I'm so awesome_ would have been a lot easier than having to listen to Austria's sincere-yet-unintentionally-insulting compliments.

"Um, thanks, I guess," Norway mumbled. _Now stop talking already; you're only making this worse, even if you don't realize it._ He hesitated a second more, trying to find another way to stall for just a _little bit _longer, realized that he'd only be delaying the inevitable no matter what he did, and that stalling would probably only make it worse in the end, then signed on the appropriate line.

When he finished, he shoved the pen and papers across the table at Austria, refusing to meet the aristocrat's eyes.

"Are you ready to go pack your things?" Austria asked as he glanced over the document, making sure that everything was in order.

"No," Norway answered bluntly. "But I suppose I don't really have a choice in the matter, so we may as well just get it over with."

-o-

_June 10, 1940  
Bern, Switzerland_

Switzerland wasn't really known for being especially enthusiastic about talking to his fellow Nations, particularly when they wanted to leave messages with him during a war, which kinda made people wonder why he took messages to begin with, instead of telling everyone to call some _other_ neutral country. After all, the whole _taking messages during a war_ thing was completely voluntary, as long as he took messages or refused to take messages for everyone equally, regardless of what side of the war they were on. And yet, Switzerland had interpreted _take messages—or not—for everyone equally_ as _take messages and yell at everyone equally._ The yelling part wasn't really supposed to be a part of the neutrality thing, but everyone knew that if anyone tried to take issue with it, Switzerland would just yell at them more, probably while shooting at them, so everyone just sort of _dealt_ with the yelling. Inexplicably, it never seemed to occur to them to try calling someone else.

Switzerland answered the phone with an annoyed "what do you want?" This was completely justified in his mind, however, because whoever was calling had interrupted him in the middle of a conversation with Liechtenstein.

"Hi, Switzerland!" Italy announced cheerfully, as oblivious to Switzerland's annoyance as he was to just about everything else. "It's Italy!" he added, just in case Switzerland hadn't figured it out already.

"What do you _want_, Italy? You interrupted me in the middle of something important!"

"Me and Romano are declaring war on France and England!" Italy said, somehow continuing to not notice the tone of voice that would have given any sane person pause. "But they're not at home right now, so if they call you, can you tell them?"

"You're…what? You're declaring war on France and England? But the war in France is pretty much _over_ by this point."

Italy giggled. "Germany told me to wait for the opportune moment to enter the war, so that's what I did."

"The opportune moment is when it's clear that France is about to lose? That…" he trailed off, reconsidering what he was about to say. "That actually doesn't surprise me at all, coming from you," he finally finished, feeling an intense urge to bang his head against his desk until he developed a concussion. A concussion _would_ be a valid excuse to stop talking to the annoying Italian, he mused. He then realized that it was highly unlikely that Italy would understand what the word _concussion _meant. It _did_ have three syllables, after all. Italy's attention span would probably short out after anything longer than _pasta_. "Why do you sound so excited about this war?" Switzerland asked as he jotted down a note to tell France and England about Italy's latest stupidity. "You do know you're going to have to do at least _some _actual fighting, don't you?"

There was a pause, and Switzerland strongly suspected that Italy was nodding his head and not realizing that the gesture couldn't be heard through the phone line. "Yeah, but I've been doing a lot of training with Germany, so I'm all ready for the war." (Switzerland let out a sharp laugh, then quickly covered it up with some fake coughing.) "And Romano and Germany and Prussia and Austria are going to help me, so there's no way I'll lose." (Switzerland muttered that Italy was only not going to lose because Germany and Prussia and Austria had already done most of the work, and then loudly denied having said anything when Italy asked what Switzerland had said.)

"And even if I do get hurt, it'll be okay because Germany will come save me!" Italy finished, and Switzerland found himself feeling sorry for Germany, who would undoubtedly be forced to "save" Italy from everything from stray dogs to untied shoelaces. Unaware of Switzerland's sudden burst of sympathy for Germany, Italy continued cheerfully. "He _promised_ he would. And he promised that after he saved me, he'd make France wish he'd never so much as looked at me."

"Now _that's_ something for France to worry about," Switzerland said, actually _meaning_ it for the first time since Italy had started listing the ways he was relying on Germany…I mean the reasons he wasn't afraid to fight. Germany hated France enough as it was, and Switzerland had no doubt that Germany was going make France absolutely miserable when he took over, and that was _without_ factoring in revenge for any injuries to the supremely useless Nation that Germany had inexplicably taken under his wing. "When I tell France about your declaration of war, I'll have to warn him about all the reasons you're not going to lose so that he'll know to stay away from you," Switzerland added in a patronizing tone that Italy didn't seem to notice. He neglected to mention that the first two reasons would probably be delivered in a rather sarcastic tone of voice. Warning France that Germany had promised revenge should Italy be hurt, on the other hand, would be deadly serious. "He hasn't called in a while, though, and I don't know how to reach him at the moment, so it might be a couple of days before I get to tell him about any of this. You might run into him on the battlefield before I even get to tell him that you've declared war."

"When you do talk to him, make sure you tell him that he's going to lose," Italy requested.

"He's _already_ lost," Switzerland scoffed. "It just hasn't been put on paper and made official yet."

"Well now he's going to lose to me and Romano too," Italy retorted.

Switzerland sighed, dutifully agreed to pass on Italy's additional message to France, and assured Italy that France and England would surely be _terrified_ by the prospect of the Italian invasion. Fortunately the sarcasm went completely over Italy's head, and Switzerland took advantage of the brief pause in the conversation to say good-bye and hang up before Italy could start rambling about pasta or some such nonsense.

-o-

_June 14, 1940  
Paris, France_

Germany wasn't usually the impatient type, but he couldn't quite stop himself from muttering "come on, come on, answer the phone," a time or two while waiting for Italy to pick up. Of course, he told himself, it was entirely possible that Italy wasn't home. Italy _had_ declared war on France and England, after all. He had told Germany that he wasn't quite done preparing just yet, but that had been two days ago. He was probably finished preparing by now. He was probably already on his way to attack France and England.

So naturally, Germany wasn't very surprised when Italy answered on the fourth ring.

"Hello!" the hyperactive Nation singsonged. "It's Italy!"

"Italy? It's Germany. Listen, I know you're probably busy preparing for war right now, but I just had to tell you—"

"Yeah, I'm preparing for war," Italy confirmed in a voice that implied that he had not, in fact, been doing anything of the sort. "Romano and I are working really hard, and we'll be done really soon."

"I'm sure you will," Germany said, not believing it for a second. Knowing Italy and Romano, they were likely to finish their preparations at, conveniently enough, the exact same time that France finished surrendering and the preparations became unnecessary. And of course, as soon as it came time to go fight England, these preparations would turn out to have mysteriously come undone between fights, and redoing them would conveniently take _just_ too long to allow Italy to help out in the fight against England. Germany rolled his eyes at Italy's lack of motivation, but his good mood wouldn't let him get too upset. "And I'm sure the two of you are busy right now. I just had to call and tell you what happened here."

"Ooh, what happened? Did you beat France? Is the war over?" Italy asked immediately, then quickly devolved into less logical guesses. "Or did you meet a pretty girl? Or did you make pasta or play with a kitty or take a nap or—"

Germany let Italy ramble for a minute as he wondered why on Earth he would consider taking a nap important enough to warrant going out of his way to make a phone call about in the middle of a war. Finally, however, he became worried for whatever traces of sanity Italy hadn't already killed, and after Italy finished guessing that Germany and Prussia had met up to eat pizza for lunch, Germany interrupted the increasingly incoherent rambling. "No, Italy, I didn't meet up with Prussia to have pizza for lunch. We're at _war_ here. We don't have time to meet up for pizza because we have actual _work_ to do."

"Oh," Italy said. "Then what _did_ you do?"

"Well," Germany said slowly, wanting to draw this out as long as possible in order to properly savor the moment as he said it out loud for the first time. He took a breath, tried to stop himself from grinning like an idiot, ended up grinning like an idiot anyway despite his (admittedly somewhat halfhearted) efforts, and finally said, "I'm occupying Paris right now."

Italy responded with a (painfully loud and high-pitched) squeal of excitement that made Germany move the phone a little bit away from his ear before Italy could permanently damage his hearing. "That's really, really cool!" Italy exclaimed. "Yay Germany!" He then proceeded to yell the news across the house to Romano, who didn't sound quite as excited about it, then relayed Romano's response to Germany. "Romano says congratulations," Italy announced. Germany strongly suspected that Romano hadn't said anything of the sort. "It's really awesome that you're occupying Paris already."

"I'm pretty proud of it," Germany admitted, still grinning. "I've been waiting for this day since we started planning the invasion. I still can't believe it's finally happened. Paris is mine, France can't do a thing about it…I just wish I could see his face right now…" he paused, taking a second to revel in his triumph before continuing. "And Paris is finally _mine_!" he finished, uncharacteristically excited, not even caring that he was repeating the same point he'd just made.

"What happened?" Italy asked eagerly. "Was it hard to take over the city?" His tone suddenly became concerned. "Did you get hurt?"

"Not really. A couple of minor injuries, but nothing too serious," Germany said. "France _tried_ to stop me from reaching Paris, but in the end I was stronger and…" he trailed off for a second. "And I'm starting to sound like Prussia, aren't I?"

Italy laughed. "Yeah, but you sound really happy right now too. You don't usually sound like this; usually you act all serious and tough. You should try to just be happy like this more often."

"Because I'm less likely to tell you to get back to work on your war preparations when I'm in a good mood?"

"I _am _working on them," Italy insisted, again, in a tone that implied the opposite. "And I'm almost done!"

Germany didn't believe this for a second, but, at least for the moment, he was too distracted by his good mood to really mind.

* * *

**Authors' Note**

Historical Stuff

- Okay, so first we finish up the Dunkirk thing. Like I said last chapter, Germany had a chance to capture England's expeditionary force, but instead his boss ordered him to stop where he was for a while. Germany's not happy about losing his chance to beat up England and France, who managed to get away. England and France are significantly less upset, even if they're not thrilled about the fact that they have to evacuate to begin with. England's government rounded up all the little boats they could find and sent them over to help evacuate troops. (And I just covered two scenes in one historical note! YES! Although I don't think I mind writing these quite as much anymore. At least not when I'm writing them during the day, as opposed to two in the morning.)

- And then Norway surrenders, which is mostly self-explanatory. I kinda wish we'd planned this out a little better so we could show more of the invasion, because Norway was pretty awesome. The Norwegian Campaign lasted 62 days, making Norway the country to withstand a German invasion for the longest length of time (not counting Russia, who got invaded, but didn't get taken over.)

- Next up, Italy declares war on France and England. Unsurprisingly, this declaration of war came after it became clear that France had pretty much lost. Italy was really not prepared for war, but his boss wasn't going to miss the chance to profit from Germany's success.

- And finally, Germany occupies Paris, which kinda sucks for France, but Germany's pretty happy about it. France did his best to stop Germany from getting to Paris, but Germany pulled it off (and then immediately ran off to tell Italy about it because he's just so proud of himself).

Authory Stuff

Vilnius's Note: This would have gotten posted _way_ sooner had I not been distracted by the fact that I kinda wrecked my parents' car a little bit...and by a little bit I mean that we now have to get an entirely new car. (Oops...) Nobody was hurt, though, so that's a good thing.

Warsaw's Note: Warsaw will post her note when she wakes up...*at least twelve hours later* Okay, so I finally woke up. It was really early, too, since I kind of fell asleep an hour or so after lunch (I have some serious messed up sleeping issues, always have) but it was all okay because I spent my morning watching Fullmetal Alchemist! Ah, the Elric brothers...they always bring out my maternal instincts. I have a strong urge to bake things now...


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